Dr Joseph Choonara

I joined the University of Leicester in January 2019 having, previously taught international political economy at King’s College London. I hold an MSc from the University of Cambridge and undertook a PhD in the political economy of employment relations at Middlesex University Business School from 2014 to 2018. I am co-director of the Centre for Sustainable Work & Employment Futures.

My recent research has focused on the nature of the labour process and the employment relationship, with particular reference to social class and the structuring of labour markets. This includes my work analysing the scope and nature of precarious employment as well as the extent and causes of job insecurity.

Selected publications include:

Research Monograph:-
Insecurity, Precarious Work and Labour Markets: Challenging the Orthodoxy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Edited Collections:-
Joseph Choonara, Annalisa Murgia, Renato Miguel Carmo (eds), Faces of Precarity: Critical Perspectives on Work, Subjectivities and Struggle (Bristol University Press, 2022).Selected Journal

Articles:-
"The precarious concept of precarity", 2020, Review of Radical Political Economics, 52:3.
"The evolution of generalised and acute job tenure insecurity", 2020, Work, Employment and Society, 34:4.
"Complex labour, value and the reduction problem", 2018, Science & Society, 82:2.
Co-authored with Alex Callinicos, "How not to write about the rate of profit: A response to David Harvey", 2016, Science & Society, 80:4.
"Review article: Bolivia's Radical Tradition and I Sweat the Flavour of Tin", 2012, Historical Materialism, 20:3.

Book chapters:-
"Class and the classical Marxist tradition", in Michael Wayne and Deirdre O'Neill (eds), Considering Class (Brill, 2018).
"The problem with precarity: precarious employment and labour markets", in Choonara, Murgia and Carmo (eds), Faces of Precarity (Bristol University Press, 2022).

A full list is available here. 

Research Monograph:
Insecurity, Precarious Work and Labour Markets: Challenging the Orthodoxy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).

Edited Collections:
Joseph Choonara, Annalisa Murgia, Renato Miguel Carmo (eds), Faces of Precarity: Critical Perspectives on Work, Subjectivities and Struggle (Bristol University Press, 2022).

Selected Journal Articles:
"The precarious concept of precarity", 2020, Review of Radical Political Economics, 52:3.
"The evolution of generalised and acute job tenure insecurity", 2020, Work, Employment and Society, 34:4.
"Complex labour, value and the reduction problem", 2018, Science & Society, 82:2.

Co-authored with Alex Callinicos, "How not to write about the rate of profit: A response to David Harvey", 2016, Science & Society, 80:4.
"Review article: Bolivia's Radical Tradition and I Sweat the Flavour of Tin", 2012, Historical Materialism, 20:3.

Book chapters:
"Class and the classical Marxist tradition", in Michael Wayne and Deirdre O'Neill (eds), Considering Class (Brill, 2018).
"The problem with precarity: precarious employment and labour markets", in Choonara, Murgia and Carmo (eds), Faces of Precarity (Bristol University Press, 2022).

I am happy to supervise PhD students with projects appropriate to my research interests.

I have taught on and convened a range of modules including Labour markets: Trends and Debates, Industrial Relations in a Changing Economy, and International Business.

I would be happy to receive enquiries on contemporary employment relations, social class, insecurity and precarity, and bogus self-employment.