dr. KA (Karin Astrid) Siegmann

Biography

Holding a PhD in Agricultural Economics, I work as an Associate Professor in Labour and Gender Economics at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Hague, the Netherlands. I am keen to understand how precarious workers challenge and change the social, economic and political structures that marginalize labour. This interest in emerges from my research on how precarious work is fashioned at the intersection of global economic processes with local labour markets, stratified by varying degrees of formality of work, as well as gender and other social identities. I have investigated these dynamics in the context of global production networks, global care chains and international migration more generally. Assuming that academia can make an important societal contribution, especially if the ways in which knowledge itself is produced embody alternatives to the status quo, I have increasingly conducted research jointly with actors who have a direct stake in progressive social change, such as workers’ and migrants’ organizations. The geographical focus of my work has been South Asia, Pakistan in particular. I welcome PhD supervisions that address these and related questions.