Sussex European Institute Events 2026
The European care border regime: East–West inequalities and marketised geographies of social reproduction
Zuzana Uhde, Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Sociology
14 October 2026, 1-2.30pm, Pevensey 1-1B3, co-hosted by SEI and SCMR
Abstract
This talk explores East–West inequalities in Europe in the field of care work - and locates these in the broader context of the racialised political economy of social reproduction. Rather than studying how East–West inequalities drive migration, Uhde focuses on how the marketisation of care and the othering of women from ‘Eastern European’ member states co-produce East–West inequalities in Europe - while at the same time legitimising the construction of bordered Europe as a racialised space of whiteness.
She draws out the contours of the European care border regime and analyses how it is enacted in the geographical space of central Europe. She suggests that the intra-EU workers’ border crossings provide an important sociological insight into the marketised geographies of care. She also traces how the - open-yet-bordered - EU arena contributes to social categorisations of people and the continued systemic devaluation of care. The European care border regime, in which the capitalist political economy of social reproduction meets the EU border regime, sustains the care sector in wealthier EU countries. Care provision relies on the mobility of women from Europe’s East who substitute the growing deficit of care workers. They occupy an ambiguous position as white-but-not-Western.
The lecture presents how practices of extraction in marketized care alter and intensify the exploitation of women on the move – and reflects on the role of the ethno-racialized categorisation as ‘Eastern European’. It approaches cross-border mobility of EU citizens as an analytical viewpoint to illustrate how the structural privilege ‘to-be-cared-for’ is linked to ‘Western Whiteness’ as a geopolitical marker of difference and how the white-but-not-Western positionality of Europe’s East masks its racialised foundation.
Speaker
Dr Zuzana Uhde is a researcher at the Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Sociology and an external research affiliate at the Institute of Gender and Development Studies, Makerere University, Uganda. Her work sits at the intersection of critical social theory, feminist theory, and critical migration and border studies. Her current research revolves around analyses of transnational social reproduction and marketisation of care, and global migration governance and political-economic and technopolitical production of bordering processes, with a regional expertise focused on East Central Europe and Eastern Africa. She is dedicated to fostering research collaborations across Europe’s East and Africa to bypass the Western hegemonic knowledge production. She also works as a co-editor of the journal Gender and Research and sits on the editorial board of the publishing house Karolinum – SLON series. She is a member of the management committee of the COST network Data Matters: Sociotechnical Challenges of European Migration and Border Control and a co-leader of its WG1.
A ‘legitimate penalty’ in the labour market? Language barriers, linguicism, and racialisation
Clara Holzinger, Institute for Sociology and Social Research, Vienna University of Economics and Business
21 October 2006, 1-2.30pm, Progressive Futures Room (Ground Floor Library) co-hosted by SEI and SCMR
Abstract
The talk addresses readily assumed ‘language barriers’ in the labour market leading to ‘deskilling’ experiences of migrantised workers. Drawing on a sociolinguistic conceptualisation of multilingualism as relational, I understand language ‘skills’ not as a binary variable, but as highly contextual, embedded, and socially constructed. Scrutinizing the imbrication of racism, nationalism, and class, I thus examine (the construction of) language barriers as a ‘technology of migranticization’. I thereby foreground an understanding of language as a potential site of inequality, relating the workings of multilingualism to the unequal distribution of resources.
The contribution is based on longitudinal qualitative interview research with tertiary educated EU citizens from Europe’s ‘East’ working in Austria. I analyse incidents where language is a resource on the one hand and constitutes a (racialised) marker of difference on the other. Grounded in the empirical analysis, I propose a distinction between symbolic and manifest language barriers, both materialising in structural inequalities. While empirically entangled, the analytic distinction reveals the tension between meritocratic discourses emphasising individual language learning and the reproduction of racialised labour hierarchies through language practices.
Speaker
Dr Clara Holzinger is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in Sociology at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business and at the University of Vienna. Prior to earning her PhD in Social Sciences, she studied Sociology, German as a Foreign and Second Language, and History in Austria and France, and worked for many years as a language teacher. Her research examines the intersections of migration, societal multilingualism, street-level bureaucracy, and work/labour. Across these fields, she is particularly interested in how social inequalities are (re)produced, especially along linguistic and racialised lines. She currently leads a research project on how migration-related multilingualism is addressed within public institutions and non-profit organisations in Vienna. A further focus of her work lies in qualitative methods for multilingual research contexts.
SEI book launch (in-person): ‘The Regulation of Gender Stereotypes in Advertising Law and Policy in Europe’
David Davies (Criminology @ Sussex)
Chair: Aleks Lewicki
11th February 2026, 1-2pm, Sabina Avdagic Room (F30) Freeman.
Abstract:
This book provides an innovative and policy-oriented analysis of gender stereotypes in advertising regulation from a socio-legal perspective.
Examining the law and policy of the European Union and three case studies in Sweden, Spain and the UK, the book draws on interviews, focus group data and desk research to critically assess the legislation and regulation on the use of gender stereotypes in advertising. Its focus is on the largely neglected question of the EU’s competence in the area of gender. And to assess this, the book considers various forms of ‘good practice’ through legislation, regulation and policy. It also explores the proscribing of gender stereotypes in advertising through ‘soft law’ measures such as self-regulation at state level, and action programmes and roadmaps at EU level. Finally, it critiques the lack of progress in achieving a unified code on the regulation of gender stereotypes whilst imagining what such a code might look like.
The book will appeal to academics with research and teaching interests in EU law, gender equality and comparative law, as well as academics and practitioners involved with media and advertising regulation, anti-discrimination law and freedom of expression.
SEI seminar (in-person): ‘Decolonising the Study of European Union’s External Relations: the Case of Palestine’
Maryam Daras and Eva Poɫońska-Kimunguyi (European Institute @ London School of Economics)
Chair: Aleks Lewicki
25th February 2026, 2-3.30pm, F40, Freeman.
Abstract:
Scholarship of the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy towards Israel/Palestine finds itself unable or unwilling to explain the genocide that has taken place in Gaza since October 2023. This is because existing research on EU policy towards Israel/Palestine is overwhelmingly Eurocentric and does not ‘remember’ the colonial dimension of these relations. The lack of colonial history and context, the absence of violence of settler-colonial project as an analytical category, the silencing of Palestinian voices, experiences and resistance to Israeli colonialism and occupation are the main features of scholarship of EU-Israel/Palestine relations. By packaging the Israel-Palestine relations as ‘conflict’, as if parties to this conflict were equal, this research is conceptually misleading, and thus, complicit in the colonial order it produces.
The chapter brings history back to the story of Europe’s engagement with the region. It puts the settler colonial project, its violence, racism, and Palestinian lived experiences into the centre of discussions of EU’s relations with Israel/Palestine to advance a revisionist account of approaches promoted by EU studies. The chapter challenges scholars to rethink the ‘peace/conflict’ paradigm that informs research on EU foreign policy towards the region.
SEI and IR book launch (in-person): ‘Islamophobia and Translations of Securitisation in Britain, France and Italy’
Ugo Gaudino (IR @ Sussex), with responses from James Hampshire (SEI & Politics @ Sussex) and Faiz Sheikh (IR @ Sussex)
Chair: Aleks Lewicki
4th March 2026, 3-4.30pm, Global Studies Resource Centre.
Abstract:
This book contributes to research on Islamophobia and critical security studies by exploring the historical trajectory and the intra-party dynamics that led three Western European centre-left parties (British Labour Party, French Socialist Party, and Italian Democratic Party) to securitize Islam. Western governments have increasingly framed Islam as a threat to national security in recent decades. Yet, the ideas and languages through which securitization manifests across and inside right-wing and left-wing parties is less examined by current literature. This book shows that political parties translate security (particularly the securitization of Islam) in the name of various ideological references. This is necessary to understand why the same securitized threat (Muslims) is interpreted differently by political parties on the Right and the Left. The author engages with one main question: How do Islamophobia and specifically its securitarian dimension travel across and inside political parties? The author argues that the securitization of Islam travels across and inside parties through a process called translation, which occurs through the appropriation of tropes traditionally belonging to the other political pole. Translation is active, because Islamophobic tropes are translated into a language coherent with partisan ideologies. Translation is also collective. If the securitization audiences are not persuaded by translation, the process might be rejected, and such rejection can lead to de-securitization. Translation is also influenced and made possible by contextual elements: the party history, the interaction between the Right and the Left, and significant external events that increased the perception of insecurity raised by Muslims.
SEI seminar (online): ‘Epistemic Injustice and Ressentiment among Marginalized Youth across Europe’
Ayhan Kaya (Istanbul Bilgi University)
Chair: Cristiano Bee
11th March 2026, 2-3.30pm, Zoom.
*Please contact the SocSci-Research Team for the Zoom link: SocSci-ResearchTeam@sussex.ac.uk