Dr Rutvica Andrijasevic
PhD (Utrecht)
Expertise
I study international labour migration and the ways in which businesses, technology, states, and people themselves shape how and where they move and the conditions in which they work and live.
Current positions
Associate Professor in International Migration and Business
School of Management
Contact
Media contact
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Biography
Initially I explored it in literary works. My wrote my MA dissertation on African American women's writers under the supervision of Prof William Boelhower and Prof Giulia Fabi at University of Trieste. Then I moved closer to home and wrote about East-West Europe migration under the supervision of Prof Dasa Duhacek and Prof Jasmina Lukic at Central European University.
At that time countries of Eastern Europe were joining the European Union and I felt that literature was insufficient to address the injustice that migrants experience as a result of restrictive immigration policies. I was familiar with these as bacj then I worked at Women's Shelter in Bologna (Italy) to support women victims of trafficking. My next project was my PhD on human trafficking for sexual exploitation that I completed at University of Utrecht, under supervision of Prof Rosi Braidotti.
Having gained my PhD, I was interested if my knowlege was of any use in the 'real' world. So, I joined Centre for Policy Studies (CEPS), a policy think-thank in Brussels. I got to learn how policy makers such as European Commission and European Paliament operate. What I missed, however, was time to think more deeply about issues rather than having to act on them immediately.
So, with my ESRC and Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships, I moved to COMPAS at University of Oxford. There, under the supervision of Prof Bridget Anderson, I broadened my research into the areas of labour and citizenship.
From COMPAS I moved to the Open University to continue my research on citizenship as part of Prof Engin Isin team on 'acts of citizenship'. My next move was to University of Leicester and then Bristol to try to understand better the role of businesses and digital technology in shaping migratory processes and experiences.
What's next?
Research interests
My most recent research examines the interdependences between software, hardware and labour and in particular how electronics supply chains synchronise the supply and assembly of labour to just-in-time manufacturing. My work exposes a key and often hidden aspect of these processes, namely the gendered bias that underpins the temporal organisation of just-in-time digital management practices.
Prior to studying the ‘platformisation of migration’ and how technology-centered business models drive particular forms of mobility and migration, my work focused on the role of the states and their immigration and employment policies in fostering vulnerability and exploitation of migrant women in so-called human trafficking for sexual exploitation.
My work has wide international reach and my writings have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Croatian and Mandarin. Thanks to my extremely topical and impact-oriented research, I have advised and provided evidence to international stakeholders including the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, Amnesty International, the Home Office and Human Rights Watch.
I am an associate editor of Organization, a editorial board member of Anti-Trafficking Review and I served as an editor of Feminist Review (2009-2020).
I am interested in supervising PhD theses on the topics of: digital labour in China and/or Europe; transnational businesses and labour migration; workers rights in global supply chains; human trafficking and forced labour; dormitory labour regime; and affective/emotional labour
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Protecting the Rights of Migrant Workers in Hungary through Public Procurement
Principal Investigator
Description
This Project aims to enhance the protection of migrant workers’ rights in the electronics supply chain in Hungary through public procurement. The Project is a collaboration between the Principal Investigator…Managing organisational unit
School of ManagementDates
01/08/2021 to 31/07/2022
‘Just-in-time labour’ for just-in-time production: transnational production and migrant labour incorporation in enlarged Europe
Principal Investigator
Description
Using just-in-time production as a primary prism for examining the working and living conditions of migrant workers in the electronics supply chain in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), this research…Managing organisational unit
School of ManagementDates
01/08/2020 to 31/07/2021
Publications
Recent publications
27/01/2022The dormitory regime revisited
Labour Regimes and Global Production
Transnational Corporations and the Making of Global Labour Markets
Global Labor Migration
'Just-in-time labour’: Time-based management in the age of on-demand manufacturing
Media and Management
Shouldering the West
Black Box East: Berliner Gazette Conference 2021
Forced Labour in Supply Chains
European Journal of Women's Studies
Teaching
I currently teach a new unit called Sustainable Work Futures in the Digital Economy. This Unit is part on School of Management MSc HRM and the Future of Work. In the Unit I discuss how digital technology is not abstract and disembodied but on the contrary it is embedded in bodies and infrastructure, politics and culture. The unit asks whose interests digital technologies serve and what is the impact of these on the exploitation of the planet and labour.
Previosly, I tought on the Approaches to Migration and Mobilities Studies unit, part of the MSc Migration and Mobilities Studies. There I lectured on the role of transnational businesses in driving labour mobility and migration, which is something that Migration Studies often overlook, as they focus much on the state and its institutions.
