Video Documentation

This section of the website contains video footage from talks, conferences, and meetings relevant to ongoing research into the theory and politics of reproduction and reproductive labor. The initial content includes talks from a conference held on May 21st and 22nd at Université Paris Nanterre, titled “Actualités du Travail Reproductif,” organized by Annabelle Berthiaume, Leopoldina Fortunati, Noemi Martorano, and Maud Simonet. The schedule and video footage of the first day of the conference proceedings are posted below.

As new footage is gathered, this page will link to separate pages hosting documentation of each event. Once the video-hosting capacity of this site is reached, we will likely add a YouTube channel. Please subscribe to our mailing list to be updated as new videos are added. For questions regarding current videos or to suggest additional content for the site, please contact us at leopoldina.fortunati[at]uniud.it or arlen.austin[at]gmail.com.

Gathering scholars and activists from Canada, Argentina, India, and several European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Italy, the United Kingdom, and France, this conference explored recent mobilizations around social reproduction. The conference aimed both to revisit the analyses of reproduction developed within the international Wages for Housework movement of the 1970s, and renew analyses based on recent mobilizations responding to the appropriation of reproductive labor both in the home and in the paid labor market.

In the morning of the second day of the conference, the launch of the research network on reproductive labor was announced and discussed. In the afternoon of the second day, a public political assembly took place regarding the relaunch of an international campaign for Wages for Housework. This public political discussion was opened by a prerecorded talk by Mariarosa Dalla Costa, followed by an online discussion with Silvia Federici. These videos have been included here, as well as the formal presentations by event participants from the first day. The schedule of the program is given below, and videos of the presentations are listed to the right. Unless otherwise noted, all talks are in French and some have been combined into a single video based on the length of individual speeches.

Day 1 Program

9:30 AM – Reproductive Work Today: Assaults and Resistance

Introduction

Annabelle Berthiaume, Assistant Professor | School of Social Work, Université de Sherbrooke (Canada)

Noemi Martorano, Postdoctoral Researcher | Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education, and Applied Psychology, University of Padua (Italy)

Maud Simonet, Research Director | CNRS, Université Paris Nanterre, IDHE.S

9:45 AM – The Historical Temporalities of Reproductive Work

Leopoldina Fortunati, Senior Professor | Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics, University of Udine (Italy)

10:30 AM – Theorizing Social Reproduction to Decolonize Approaches to Global Development

Alessandra Mezzadri, Professor | Department of Development Studies, University of London (UK)

11:15 AM – 1:15 PM – First Roundtable: Domestic Work – Invisibility, Uberization, Unionization

Moderated by Maud Simonet, Research Director | CNRS, Université Paris Nanterre, IDHE.S

Politically Organizing Single Mothers: A “Social Time Bomb”

Agnès Aoudaï, Co-president | Movement of Single Mothers (France)

Unionization: Domestic Workers’ Struggles Around the World

Giulia Garofalo Geymonat, Assistant Professor | Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy)

In the Name of Women: The Uberization of Domestic Work

Nicole Teke, PhD Candidate in Sociology | IDHE.S, Université Paris Nanterre (France)

1:15 PM – 1:30 PM – Editorial Updates on Reproductive Work

With the bookstore El Ghorba, mon amour

2:15 PM – 4:15 PM – Second Roundtable: Social Services – Recognized Reproductive Work?

Moderated by Noemi Martorano | Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Padua, IDHE.S Nanterre

Commodification of Healthcare and the “Refamilialization” of Care in Belgium

Natalia Hirtz, Researcher | Group for Research on an Alternative Economic Strategy (GRESEA), Brussels (Belgium)

Social Reproduction and Colonial Care Chains

Sara Farris, Professor of Sociology | University of London (UK)

A Wage for Users: Toward a True Common Front

Camille Marcoux-Berthiaume and Gabrielle Laverdière, Activists | The Great Resignation, Montreal (Canada)

4:30 PM – 6:30 PM – Third Roundtable: Informalization and Criminalization of Reproductive Work

Moderated by Annabelle Berthiaume, Assistant Professor | Université de Sherbrooke (Canada)

Laws of Social Reproduction

Prabha Kotiswaran, Professor of Law and Social Justice | King’s College London (UK)

The Ultra-Right War Against Social Reproduction: A Brief Genealogy from Argentina

Veronica Gago, Professor of Social Sciences | University of Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Blow Jobs Are Real Jobs: Sex Work, Reproduction, and Organizing by Sex Workers in Montreal

Adore Goldman, Activist | Autonomous Sex Work Committee, Montreal (Canada)

Invoking the Archive, Growing New Worlds: Materials for a Feminist Future — curated by Barbara Mahlknecht. Design: Anna Moschioni; sound: Michael Hammerstiel. Archive of Feminist Struggle (Mariarosa Dalla Costa), 2025.

Barbara Mahlknecht introduces Invoking the Archive, Growing New Worlds: Materials for a Feminist Future. Design: Anna Moschioni; sound: Michael Hammerstiel. From the Archive of Feminist Struggle (Mariarosa Dalla Costa), 2025.

Day Two: In the afternoon a public assembly was organized to reinvest in campaigns for Wages for Housework

Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Silvia Federici opened the assembly with two interventions which are recorded below.

Leopoldina Fortunati: In the opening presentation for the conference, Fortunati discusses historical temporalities of reproductive labor.

(From left) Noemi Martorano, Barbara Mahlknecht, and Maud Simonet preparing the installation, Université Paris Nanterre, May 21–22, 2025.