Welcome to the publication platform of the scientific network Worlds of Related Coercions in Work (WORCK), funded as COST Action CA18205 by the European Union (2019-2023).

WORCK calls for a radical change of perspective in labour history. It suggests a new analytical framework for the understanding of labour and power relations by studying the persistence and transformation of coercion across gender orders, geographical regions and historical eras. The network members – about 150 scholars from 40 different countries worldwide – link the stories of work and production with those of violence, expropriation and marginalisation. They study processes, dynamics and experiences of labour coercion in a wide array of historical settings ranging from the plantation, the army regiment, the prison camp, the mine, the household and the factory and the connections between such sites. They explore work ranging from wage labour to the most precarious forms of non-commodified work from the ancient world to the present.