Guest Editors: Fabio Perocco (University of Venice) – Francesca Rosignoli (University of Stockholm)

Questo numero della rivista Socioscapes prende in esame il razzismo ambientale nel mondo di oggi, con particolare attenzione alle sue conseguenze sulla salute delle popolazioni di colore e alle disuguaglianze razziali di salute.

This special issue of the Journal Socioscapes examines environmental racism in today's world, with particular attention to its consequences on the health of black populations (Bipoc) and racial health inequalities.

Ce numéro de la Revue Socioscapes examine le racisme environnemental dans le monde d'aujourd'hui, avec une attention particulière à ses conséquences sur la santé des populations noires et les inégalités raciales de santé.

Guest editors: Ricardo Antunes– Università di Campinas, Pietro Basso – Università Ca’ Foscari e Fabio Perocco – Università Ca’ Foscari

The last two decades have seen profound transformations of work, both in the process of work organisation and in the functioning of the labour market. Among these, the most recent and fastest is the computerisation of work, in particular the digitisation of work. A new frontier has thus opened up in the field of work and, at the same time, in the exploitation and precarisation of work, which the current health and social-economic crisis is widening out of all proportion. The practice and the myth of “smart working” are the visible signs of a planetary dynamic of capitalist matrix which, once again, presents the possible liberation and humanization of labour within the framework of a new, and perhaps more radical, alienation, atomization and subordination of labour to the imperatives of the market and profit.

The aim of this issue of the Journal is to critically analyse this dynamic, paying particular attention to the relationship between the so-called “digital platforms” and their “applications”: alongside the intense development of informal and digital technology, we are witnessing the expansion of different modes of intense exploitation of the workforce, which is expressed in highly precarious working conditions, long working days, low wages, high levels of illness. Usually these new forms of work are presented as free and autonomous “services”, the workers involved become “self-entrepreneurs”, “masters” of their working time. And this allows the platforms, i.e. the companies that own and control them, to circumvent and cheat on the labour laws of the countries in which they operate.

From this set of labour transformation processes, in which the technological element appears on the surface as prevalent on the structure of social relations that actually subsume it, important issues emerge that are of great interest for this call for papers dedicated to digital work:

What, in fact, characterizes this new mode of work? First of all: Is it something completely new, for the use it makes of ITC resources, or is it a combination of old and new forms of work organization? Based on what criteria, and for what purposes, were the algorithms built? How do they control the time and intensity of work? Who controls the algorithms? What is the role of artificial intelligence in these new forms of work delivery? What are, in them, the connections between materiality, immateriality, digital work and the creation of value and wealth? What about the exploitation of labour and overwork (surplus value)? How does the creation of surplus value take place when work is unpaid? What are the new ways taken up by the conflict between capital and labour? Is it possible to regulate these jobs that do not stop expanding?

There are also important questions relating to the social consequences of the computerization and digitization of work, which are also of great importance for this issue of the Journal: the impact of computerization on work intensification and working time; the effects of digitization on the qualification/dequalification processes of work and workers; the relationship between digitization and precarization; the impact of digitization on wages, and on de-salarization phenomena; digitization as an element of (material, social, psychological) impoverishment and a factor of new social inequalities.

And last but not least: with the expansion of the so-called Industry 4.0 - which will further intensify the robotization and digital automation in all possible activities, through the "internet of things", the expansion of artificial intelligence, with profound consequences on employment - what are the main consequences for the working class? What is the new configuration of the working class? What are the possible forms of resistance, organisation and representation of this growing part of the working class?

Guest Editors: Samuele Grassi (University of Florence-Monash University), Churnjeet Mahn (University of Strathclyde), Cirus Rinaldi (University of Palermo), and Prof Yvette Taylor (University of Strathclyde)

This themed section of Socioscapes. International Journal of Societies, Politics and Cultures problematises the sense of crisis as ‘exceptional’, which circulated in the media and political discourses during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we resume interrupted conversations in, through and against our ‘business as usual’, as the normative background against which we pause on and press against, we feel a renewed sense of urgency in looking at persistent and enduring inequalities – some long-standing, already endemic, and others exacerbated by the intersecting crises of our times, including and exceeding COVID-19.

Cover's  Photo Credit: Avarino Caracò (Title: Rashmi - take a look at www.rinocaraco.com)

Recent politics of migration in Europe and beyond conjure up alarming scenarios. The push for restrictive border politics of the agendas of Donald Trump in the US, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Scott Morrison (and his predecessors, Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott) in Australia have reached unprecedented levels of cruelty. These agendas are increasingly built around metaphorical and material walls against migrant women and men who escape from different areas of the world.

Compare the dissonance of terms like borders, walls, xenophobic behaviours, and racism with the watchwords of globalisation as ideology and as world order – mobility, freedom, inclusion, integration, affluence, prosperity, and development.

The inaugural issue of the journal, Socioscapes aims to tackle with this profound contradiction.

In the context of capitalist economies, the watchwords inspired by freedom and mobility (of goods, capitals, knowledges, people) have marked the rise of accelerated, late liberalism we live in since its inception. The reality shows us a rather different picture, with the majority of states, as well as supra-national organisations and networks, denying the freedom of movement to a wide number of people fleeing inequalities, military and political conflicts in their countries of origin.

The watchwords that belong to ideologies and to the actual policies applied by contemporary States are two contradicting vectors; is there an inverse relationship between them? And, how can we, as critical thinkers, probe at these questions? What is their relation to, for instance, politics, economics, and culture(s)?