At this event, visiting PhD student Will Kendall will provide a general introduction to his ongoing doctoral research.

In short, Will's PhD research explores interrelated questions of labour and livelihoods in the ‘logistical hinterlands’ of the South Lincolnshire Fens. This agricultural region is the site of historic drainage and enclosure struggles, but has gained more recent attention for its overwhelming support for ‘Brexit’, most notably in the town of Boston. Here, Will explores how supermarket supply chain capitalism has reconfigured social relations in this flat, windy marshland on the ‘edge of England’. He is thinking about how the persistence of factory work in unexpected places troubles vocabularies of ‘post-industrial’ work, how the prevalence of labour agencies might help us better understand contemporary ‘precarity’, and the value of situating questions of labour in broader ‘lifeworlds of work’. Will recently completed a multi-sited ethnography of work in the area, conducting biographical interviews with workers and spending time with farms, packhouses, convenience food factories, and logistics firms. Thinking about questions of co-dependency and entanglement across the supply chain in the Fens, he is particularly eager to learn from the transdisciplinary and relational approach of the centre.

As always, everyone interested is free and welcome to attend.