The LEST General Seminar

In 2026–2027, LEST is launching a new cycle of its general seminar series, focusing on a cross-cutting theme: putting the world to work. 

The concept of ‘putting the world to work’ aims to examine, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the processes through which elements of the world (humans, non-humans, infrastructure, knowledge, objects and communities) are engaged in the dynamics of producing, reproducing and transforming the world. 

Which work placement(s)?

What does it actually mean to put the world to work – under what conditions, for whom, and with what consequences?

The term “work” is not to be understood here solely in the sense of employment or economic activity, but rather as a broader analytical category, enabling us to grasp a diversity of forms of social engagement and coexistence. Indeed, work is permeated by relationships of economic exploitation and social oppression, as well as by bonds of solidarity, which are today inseparable from production, the subjugation of the world and the mobilisation of living beings as resources.

From this perspective, the concept of “putting people to work” – which is deliberately polysemic and ambiguous – refers to a variety of processes. It can refer to material, sensory and infrastructural dynamics surrounding work, for example, those enabling agricultural production, waste management, the exploitation of living organisms or data processing. It also encompasses institutional and organisational processes for the preparation and control of work, drawing on educational and vocational systems, mechanisms of expertise, public policies, and all manner of intermediary actors. ‘Putting to work’ may also refer to political and subjective processes that question, challenge or redefine the contours of work, and the frictions generated in relation to dominant social orders. 

This approach, centred on labour, also enables us to examine the widespread crises within a socio-economic system under strain, characterised by the depletion of terrestrial and human socio-reproductive functions. Finally, it highlights the contradictions inherent in all activities and which run through these dynamics – for example, between emancipation and control, valorisation and destruction, participation and invisibilisation.

Organisation of the seminar

By bringing together a range of empirical case studies and disciplinary approaches, this programme for the LEST’s general seminar thus aims to explore, collectively, how the boundaries of work are being redefined today – what is recognised as such, or not, and by whom, and what this entails – as well as contemporary forms of organisation, emancipation, interdependence and global transformation.

The seminar is organised into four themed sessions enabling people to exchange views and engage in dialogue: 

• Putting forms of engagement into practice (7 December)
• Putting the world to work to feed it (4 January) 
• Putting knowledge into practice (15 February) 
• and finally, being put to work as a form of disposal (10 May). 

The general seminar will also include four further specific sessions : 

• the back-to-term seminar to get our minds back into gear (21 September) 
• the induction seminar for new students (12 October) 
• the doctoral defence seminar (22 March) 
• and the LEST-CEREQ seminar on putting data to work and data from putting data to work (14 June). 

Please note that the general seminar to mark the start of the academic year, on «putting our intellectual worlds into practice», will take a special format, with the aim of bringing together and sharing our points of reference, and laying the foundations for dialogue throughout the year. 

Overview of the 2026–2027 thematic sessions

For the thematic sessions, each seminar will feature two or three different presentations, with the aim of fostering dialogue between different approaches, circulating ideas and exploring the ways in which these processes of “putting into practice” unfold, are organised, evolve or are challenged depending on the context. Next, we want to try to build bridges, rather than maintaining boundaries between disciplines, through group discussions in the form of world cafés. The aim of these discussions will be to foster dialogue between scientific traditions that are sometimes quite distinct, and to transform any potential friction between analytical frameworks into resources for rethinking the way work is carried out.