Despite pandemic delays, the work of the project LABOUR slowly started in January 2021 and continued throughout the year. Pandemic restrictions impacted the project's secondments, and thus research, was not evenly possible throughout the network. Besides, the recent military coup in Myanmar made it difficult, say impossible, to second staff to the country. As a remedy, we added another partner (KYSD Cambodia) that is equally competent and guaranteed completion of the planned secondments on time. The first phase of the project concentrated on secondment of fellows from Asian to EU countries. This came not only out of necessity, to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, but also well in consistency with the workflow. Indeed, these research stays allowed staff from non-academic partner to undergo academic training and therefore contribute more actively to the research and training components of the project.
The team also started its visibility activities with a panel at the IPSO Peace Conference in Kyoto, where members of several partners (GIVE, KYSD, PAKISAMA, TLU) contributed to the discussion.
From late 2021, the situation normalised and secondments proceeded in all directions exceeding the original goal of 56 researchers from Asia and Europe, conducting studies on precarious labour across diverse settings and contexts. The data collected produced several innovative deliverables, as listed in the communication and dissemination section. The project also delivered seminars and workshops, a wide range of academic and non-academic publications, conference panels, and multiple network events documented in the deliverables.
Mid-Term Review and collective network-based trainings were combined with a management, exploitation, and dissemination event, featuring research presentations and a panel on business in Asia.
