Digital Labour, Globalisation and Creative Industries
Programme for Summer School to be held in Razlog (near Bansko), Bulgaria, July 22-26, 2013
This workshop-style summer school offers PhD students and post doctoral researchers the chance to combine onsite visits with practical workshops and the opportunity to network with others working in these related fields, supported by international experts in the field. In particular, it is designed to help researchers to work collaboratively with others from different national and disciplinary research traditions to develop methodologies and strategies for designing European research projects on virtual work.
The Location
The school will begin in Sofia on 22nd July with a local introduction and an overnight stay in the capital before undertaking site visits and moving by minibus to Razlog on 23rd.
Participants’ accommodation and workshop facilities in Razlog will be provided at the Spa Hotel Katarino:
AcommodationHotel Katarino is situated in South West Bulgaria in the foothills of the Pirin Mountain, 2km from Razlog and 8km from the bigger town of Bansko. The Bulgarian capital Sofia is 2.5 hours drive away.
The workshop will formally end with lunch on 26th July after which participants will be returned to the airport or Sofia centre depending on their onward plans.
The School
The workshop-style school will be student-centred allowing participants to discuss and develop their own current research projects, either as doctoral students or as post-doctoral/early career researchers, with others in the field.
Theme 1 – Participants’ Individual Research
This element of the programme will begin with all participants introducing their current research to the group as a whole and then working throughout the programme in small tutorial groups of 4/5 with a staff facilitator to consider its further development.
Theme 2 – The Collaborative Research Team
In parallel, participants will work as part of an independent collaborative research team over the period of the workshop, identifying research questions, strategies, methodologies and publication strategies.
This second theme will be developed in conjunction with proposed local site visits to businesses/workplaces. In a differently constituted group of 4/5 participants will develop a collaborative virtual research proposal. This begins with the workplace visits and invites participants to identify issues arising from the visit they think are worthy of investigation. Proposals willl be presented to the group as a whole towards the end of the workshop.
Theme 3 – Research Skills and Knowledge
Central to the event will be the development of participants’ practical research skills, including the selection of methodologies suitable for exploring digital labour and the creative industries and knowledge of issues associated with work and employment in this broad sector, Whole group sessions led by specialist researcher tutors will focus on methodologies and contemporary issues in the study of digital labour and the creative industries. These staged interventions during the workshop may be drawn upon by participants as they work through themes 1 and 2.
Theme 4 – The Local Context
Research takes place in a context; historical, political, social, economic and technological and the workshop will pay some attention to the local context of Bulgaria – a relatively recent member of the EU and faced with its own unique issues arising from its history as a former Eastern European Bloc country. The early 1990s marked the beginning of a new era in the global division of labour in digitised activities. In this period, Bulgaria emerged as one of the major offshore locations, providing the world with back-office services in software development, call centres and film studios. Some contextual background is seen as essential if we are to develop meaningful research questions as part of the workshop activity and expert local specialists will provide this.
