Date: June 11, 2025 - 6pm-8pm
Location: WU Wien, Welthandelsplatz 1, TC.2.02

Capitalism is destroying our planet, but like most social progress in the last two centuries, ecological justice can only be achieved through working-class struggle. In Workers of the Earth, Stefania Barca uncovers the environmental history and political ecology of labour to shed new light on the potentiality of workers as ecological subjects. Taking an ecofeminist approach, this ground-breaking book makes a unique contribution to the emerging field of environmental labour studies, expanding the category of labour to include waged and unwaged, industrial and meta-industrial workers. Going beyond conventional categories of 'production' and 'reproduction' as separate spheres of human experience, Barca offers a fresh perspective on the place of labour in today's global climate struggle, reminding us that the fight against climate change is a fight against capitalism.

About the author: Stefania Barca is associate professor in contemporary history and a Distinguished Researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela/CISPAC, where she teaches environmental and gender history. Her previous books include Forces of Reproduction (Cambridge U.P. 2020) and Enclosing Water (White Horse press 2010). She is an active member of feminist degrowth and ecosocialist networks, and of climate jobs and care income campaigns; she is also a founder and coordinator of the international Just Transition and Care network.

The book presentation is organized by Corinna Dengler and her team.