NALSU Labour Studies Seminar Series:

The NALSU Labour Studies Seminar Series is focused on "labour studies" broadly defined, and includes contributions from a range of theoretical, methodological and disciplinary perspectives.

It is a vibrant example of collegiality in action. It is organised jointly by NALSU and the Departments of Sociology and Industrial Sociology, and Economics and Economic History. Before the 2020-2021 lockdowns, the semirnars were held on the Rhodes University campus, Makhanda, with some repeated at the Eastern Cape Socio-Economic Consultative Council (ECSECC) in East London and Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth.

With the lockdowns, we have migrated to a new format, of popular workshops plus webinars; the latter will become hybrid events on campus and online once the university reopens fully in 2022.

Brief reports on select previous seminars held in previous years can be found here. Our events for 2020-2021 have been graciously funded by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES).

NALSU hosts the Annual Neil Aggett Labour Studies Lecture.

First phase: 2014-2018

In its first phase, the Aggett Lecture took the form of an on-campus academic public lectures. The series was honoured to host the following speakers:

• 2014, 2 April: Dr Beverley Naidoo, "Death of an Idealist: In Search of Neil Aggett"
• 2015, 21 September: Professor Edward Webster, University of the Witwatersrand, "The Death of Neil Aggett: Unions and Politics, Then and Now"
• 2017, 25 May: Professor Murray Leibbrandt, University of Cape Town, "Confronting South Africa's Inequality: Why and How?"
• 2018, 14 August: Professor Shireen Hassim, University of Witwatersrand, "Seeing Apartheid from the Inside Out: The Life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela"

Second phase: 2019 onwards

In 2018-2019, we decided to refocus the Annual Neil Aggett Labour Studies Lecture on working-class audiences, and run it as a public event but linked to our annual Vuyisile Mini Workers School. Due to the 2020 lockdowns, the formal launch took place in 2021:

•  2021, 11 November: Professor Noor Nieftagodien, "Worker-Community Unity: Historical Reflections for Future Struggles"
•  2022, 2 November, Professor Emeritus Eddie Webster, “"Re-Casting the Power of Labour: Working in the Shadow of the Digital Age," which can be viewed here.