Mrozowicki, Adam, Stewart, Paul, Zentai, Violetta (2015) "Critical Labour Studies in Hungary, Poland and the UK: Between crisis and revitalisation", Forum Socjologiczne, Special Issue (Number One): Social boundaries and meanings of work in the 21st century capitalism, ed. by Mrozowicki, Adam, Kolasińska, Elżbieta, Róg-Ilnicka, Joanna, Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, pp. 19-34.
Abstract: This article explores the developments of critical labour studies in three countries, Hungary, Poland and the UK. Regardless of different historical trajectories and political contexts, the British, Hungarian and Polish critical labour studies were affected by similar challenges, such as (1) the marginalisation of the sociology of work in the academia; (2) loosening of the vital links between sociologists of work and workers’ movements; (3) relatedly, the relationship between these and the role of neo-liberal ideologies more broadly. Simultaneously, albeit with different intensity, we can observe some indicators of the renewal of critical traditions beyond the boundaries of institutionalised sociology and the formation of a new, interdisciplinary research fields in all three countries studied. The article concludes that the development of a CLS in Poland, the UK and Hungary can be linked to national trajectories of the respective labour movements, their relations with academic and other milieus, the legitimacy of critical (neo-Marxist, socialist feminist and other) intellectual traditions and specific conjunctures in critical social sciences.
