Project description
Investigating global production changes and their impact on Romanian workers
In the 1970s, Western European companies initiated a series of intricate moves to restructure their production chains, resulting in the mobilisation of capital, technology transfers, and labour reorganisation. While the exploitation of the Global South's resources and labour has been extensively studied, the incorporation of socialist East-Central Europe remains underexplored. In this context, the MSCA-funded Worldsoflabour project addresses this gap by analysing the incorporation of the Romanian car industry into global commodity chains, focusing on a factory in Craiova. This research will investigate the transformation of these factories as a convergence of socialist accumulation and the crisis-driven dynamics of global capitalism since the 1970s, shedding light on the impact on Romanian workers’ experiences.
Objective
In the 1970s, companies from Western Europe initiated a series of complex moves towards the reterritorialisation of their production chains. These moves involved ample mobilities of capital, transfers of technology, and a wide range of managerial practices for the reorganization and flexibilization of labour. While there is a rich literature documenting how the Global South has been historically constituted as a reservoir of natural resources and cheap labour in-between the twin logics of empire and capital, the move towards socialist East-Central Europe has received less empirical attention and has definitely remained undertheorised. My project tackles this issue through an analysis of the incorporation of the Romanian car industry in global commodity chains between the late 1960s and 2017, with a further focus on an automobile factory located in the Southern part of Romania, in the city of Craiova. I build on this case to investigate the global changes in production politics that marked the period between the late socialist decades into the present, and their impact on the Romanian workers’ generational experiences. The project brings its contribution to current scholarly efforts to better understand the advance of flexible capitalism in peripheral and semi-peripheral regions of the world, as well as its capacity to create new “economies of impermanence”, which directly shaped biographical structures of possibilities for several generations of employees. To achieve this goal, my research follows a less travelled path: instead of reifying “socialism” and “capitalism” as separate economic systems, I analyse the transformation of the Romanian factories into an extended workbench for Western European companies as an encounter between the logic of socialist accumulation and the crisis-led “spatial fixes” materialized globally since the 1970s. A deeper knowledge of their entanglements is crucial for understanding the past, present, and future of global production.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2017
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
SE14 6NW London
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.