Utopias at work: Theories, methods and practices for more democratic work relations – Introduction to the Special Issue

This Special Issue explores the role of utopian thinking as a theoretical, methodological and political resource for the study of work, labour relations and workplace democracy. Against a backdrop of intensifying inequalities, precarious employment, authoritarian tendencies, ecological crises, genocide, and the erosion of workers’ rights, the contributions engage with utopia not as escapism or idealism, but as a critical practice for questioning the present and imagining alternative futures. Drawing on critical utopian studies, feminist theory, labour studies, decolonial scholarship and labour law, the issue examines how workers, activists, scholars and legal thinkers challenge dominant understandings of labour and envision more democratic, equitable and sustainable forms of work.

The contributions span diverse empirical and theoretical contexts, including domestic workers’ organising in Tanzania, waste labour in South Asia, municipal workers’ strikes in Sweden, activation programmes, labour law, migration governance, menstrual justice, workplace democracy in socialist Yugoslavia, and the legacies of utopian socialism. Collectively, they explore how utopian perspectives expose the limits of existing arrangements while foregrounding workers’ own knowledge, experiences and aspirations as sources of transformative possibility. The articles highlight how work is shaped by intersecting relations of capitalism, colonialism, caste, gender, migration and social reproduction, while showing that alternative futures emerge through everyday struggles, collective action and practices of hope. Rather than offering blueprints for a perfect society, the contributions reveal utopia as already present in fragmented and contradictory forms within contemporary struggles over work. Utopia thus emerges as an ongoing collective practice of contesting existing conditions and imagining alternative ways of organising work, life and society.