Romano Alquati (1935–2010) was an Italian sociologist and a key figure in the operaismo (workerism) movement. He developed conricerca (co-research), combining militant research with working-class inquiry to analyze industrial capitalist transformations and workers’ struggles. After moving to Turin in 1960, he joined the editorial boards of Quaderni Rossi and Classe Operaia. His work focused on class composition and the capital-labor relationship. He taught Industrial Sociology at the University of Turin and remains influential in critical labor studies and autonomist Marxism.
Emiliana Armano is a sociologist and independent researcher with a PhD in Economic Sociology from the University of Milan. Her research focuses on digital capitalism, platform work, and labor transformations in the digital economy, using co-research and engaged research approaches. She examines the intersection of work processes and the production of subjectivity and precariousness in contemporary capitalism. Recent publications include Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Subjectivities (University of Westminster Press, 2022), co-edited with Marco Briziarelli and Elisabetta Risi.
Kristin Carls is a German political scientist specializing in European integration and political economy. Her research examines EU governance structures, economic coordination mechanisms, and the politics of European integration. She focuses on the intersection of national and supranational governance, particularly how member states adapt to European-level policies. Her work contributes to the understanding of European economic governance and multi-level governance processes in contemporary EU policymaking.
Andrea Cavazzini, Scientific Collaborator in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Liège, Belgium, is a political philosopher specializing in contemporary French philosophy, particularly Louis Althusser and structural Marxism. His research examines the relationship between philosophy and politics, focusing on ideology critique, historical materialism, and the epistemological foundations of the social sciences. He has translated some important philosophical works and contributes to debates on the contemporary relevance of Marxist theory, bridging philosophical analysis with political engagement.
Daniela Leonardi, PhD in Applied Sociology and Methodology of Social Research, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turin, focusing on labor studies, social movements, and critical political economy. Her research examines work transformations in contemporary capitalism, particularly precarization processes and new forms of labor organization. She contributes to feminist critiques of political economy, analyzing how gender dynamics shape labor relations and economic structures, often using co-research methodologies that emphasize workers’ knowledge and experiences.
Rosanna Maccarone is a Germanist and freelance lecturer in cultural and language studies at the Volkshochschule in Frankfurt, Germany. As an independent researcher, she focuses on critical literature related to labor studies, social movements, and urban transformations. Her work explores shifting labor and social dynamics in post-industrial contexts, with particular attention to precarious employment and the impacts of economic restructuring on working-class communities. She adopts grassroots perspectives and community-based research methods to analyze social change from the standpoint of those most directly affected by economic and cultural transformation.
Cristina Morini is a theorist and independent researcher specializing in critical political economy with a feminist and gender studies approach. Her work focuses on the feminization of labor and work transformations in contemporary capitalism, examining how gender dynamics shape economic structures. She researches precarious work, social reproduction, and the intersection of productive and reproductive labor, contributing to feminist critiques of neoliberalism through a gendered analytical lens. She is also an activist and promoter of the militant research network effimera.org. Her most recent major publication is Vite lavorate. Corpi, valore, resistenze al disamore, published by Manifestolibri in March 2022, which analyzes the intertwining of bodies and value and explores forms of resistance in the precarious era of feminized labor under advanced capitalism.
Annalisa Murgia is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Milan, where she also serves as the scientific coordinator of the Research Centre Genders. Her research explores precariousness and its implications for workers’ subjectivities, emerging forms of collective organising, and gendered and intersectional inequalities within organisations. She is PI of the ERC project SHARE, and recently published Hybrid Labour: Measuring, Classifying, and Representing Workers at the Boundaries of Employment and Self-employment (Routledge, 2025).
Devi Sacchetto teaches Sociology of Work and Migration at the University of Padua. His research interests concern labor studies, migration, and industrial relations in global supply chains, focusing on European contexts. In particular, he conducted long periods of studies on the transformation of industrial relations in post-socialist countries and their integration into global capitalism, often employing ethnographic methods to understand labor conditions from the workers’ perspective. Among his publications, The Politics of Migrant Labour (with G. Alberti), Bristol University Press, 2024.
Steve Wright is a researcher specializing in Italian operaismo and contemporary social movements. His work examines both the analyses of theorists such as Antonio Negri, Mario Tronti, and Romano Alquati, and the collective (and often anonymous) reflections produced by workerist circles in their efforts to understand the shifting patterns of class dynamics.
