Call for Submissions: Labor Tech Research Network Book, Graduate Student Paper, and Social Justice Awards

Labor Tech Research Network (LaborTech) invites submissions for our third annual Book, Graduate Student Paper, and Social Justice Award. 

Deadline: June 1, 2024

*About Us*

LaborTech is an interdisciplinary and transnational group of over 570 experts concerned with the intersection of technology and labor. We aim to reframe conversations about technology and labor towards issues of power, inequality, and social justice, and incorporate themes of feminism, anti-racism, and transnationalism. We also seek to foster an interdisciplinary, cross-regional, and community-oriented space for discussion, collaboration, and empowerment. For a deeper discussion of our mission, please see the 'About Us' page on our website as well as examples of topics in our decade-long Speaker Series.

*Call for Nominations*

As part of our mission to promote scholarship and activism towards more equitable forms of labor and technology, LaborTech is announcing a call for three awards -- Book, Graduate Student Paper, and Social Justice. These will honor projects which:

• have distinctive intellectual merit or activist impact;
• advance the knowledge about labor and technology in the global society; and
• address our core focus on labor and technology and which may simultaneously address feminism, anti-racism, and/or transnationalism.

*Eligibility*

Works from all disciplines and methodologies are eligible for nomination. Nominations are open to members and non-members of LaborTech.  We welcome self-nominations especially, but also nominations from publishers, colleagues, and others familiar with the projects.  We encourage submissions from women, people of color, queer communities, and those from the global south. LaborTech executive board members and committee chairs, as well as books published in our Labor and Technology series with MIT Press, are ineligible for these awards.

*Prizes*

Winners receive a small cash award and a certificate (which we hope to expand further in years ahead, as we are still a growing nonprofit organization :). In addition, we offer our infrastructural supports at LaborTech to promote visibility of your projects:  by connecting with our 570+ expert members; by making a video of winners and distributing it both in and outside of our network to enhance public attention and exposure; and by creating a space and opportunity for sharing your work at out end of year virtual celebration. Winners will be announced in December.

*Deadline and Contact*

The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2024.  Send questions to labortechresearchnetwork@gmail.com.  See below for separate criteria and instructions for the various awards.

*Criteria and Submission Details*

*Book Award*

Criteria:

• Monographs only (no edited volumes or anthologies)
• Multiple authors accepted
• Published in the last three years (2022-24).
• If your book is not out by the deadline for this award, please send proofs from the manuscript and a letter from the press editor confirmation publication before the end of 2024.

Submission details:

Please submit the following items in English to labortechresearchnetwork@gmail.com:

1. An electronic version in PDF format (contact us if only print form is available for books)
2. The author's contact email address
3. A one-page nomination letter stating the significance and contribution of the work

*Graduate Student Paper Award*

Criteria:

• Written by students currently enrolled in a graduate program or who have graduated in 2023
• Single-authored pieces are preferred, but co-authored pieces will be accepted with the above conditions in Submission Details
• Papers may be published within the last three years (2022-24) or unpublished
• Page length: 25-40 pages, double-spaced

Submission details:

Please submit the following items in English to labortechresearchnetwork@gmail.com:

1. Electronic version in PDF format
2. The author's email address
3. A one-page nomination letter stating:
• the significance and contribution of the work
• when the PhD was started and, if applicable, granted- if the paper was published, then state when and in what journal
• if co-authored with faculty/advisors/other PhDs, please include a paragraph attesting to the student's dominant role in generating the paper (such as working on its theoretical components, doing the research, and writing it up). In addition, we ask that the cover letter is signed (digitally, or otherwise) by all co-authors, so that they are aware of this submission.

*Social Justice Award*

Criteria:

• Those who are interfacing with technology in the course of their organizing, or who are organizing against inequitable technologies, in the context of labor, feminism, anti-racism, transnationalism struggles.  This may include:

· tech workers

· labor organizers, whether in unions or other workers' associations

· feminist, immigrant, community, and ethnic rights activists

· scholar-activists.  For this, we are not looking for purely academic work (i.e., scholars who are studying activism), but rather those who are participating in activism themselves, or who are promoting collaborations between activists and scholars.

· people creating design alternatives for social justice, like engineers and designers 

· Open to individuals, small groups, and if appropriate, organizations

· Focus will be on a particular campaign or project that is done with the aim of social justice regarding labor and/or technology.  These projects may be broad (such as educating the public on a social justice issue) or specific (such as organizing a protest for higher wages).  They may use a variety of strategies (e.g., art, design, social media, marches and strikes, policy interventions, etc.).  We'd like to honor activists who, through these projects, have developed novel approaches or who are pioneers in the fight for more equitable relations of technology and/or labor.

Submission details:

• Fill out this Google Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfRQ7kk9IEEtYqNinwKfLTgMF6CiIJudZc8DBz02pWVq6TnrQ/viewform?usp=sharing. It has a few short questions regarding the significance and contribution of your social justice activities
• Answers to this form should be a minimum 200 words each, in order to give us enough understanding of the nominee's accomplishments.  No single sentence answers please!
• Please submit all items in English.  However, if you have a submission in another language, contact us and we'll attempt to find a translator in our group.