By rethinking Marx’s core categories, Leopoldina Fortunati showed that this reproductive labor is productive and indispensable to capitalism, even though it is systematically devalued and treated as “natural.”

Some forty years later, the book deserves a fresh look. The hidden mechanisms of reproduction haven’t disappeared; they’ve taken on new forms. Most reproductive labor is still unpaid. At the same time, a growing share of it has become globalized and commodified, often carried by migrant women who meet the care needs of wealthier countries. And digital platforms now reorganize childcare, domestic work, dating, social life, and even sexuality.

Leopoldina Fortunati is a radical feminist activist and theorist and Senior Professor of the Sociology of Communication and Culture at the University of Udine, Italy. There she founded and directed the new media research laboratory (NuMe) and directed the doctoral programmed in multimedia communication. From 2002 to 2014, she was a leading member of COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). In 2016, she was elected to the Academia Europaea for her contributions to gender studies and new media, and named a Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA). Her work has been published in 11 languages.

The lecture is part of the lecture series marking the 25th anniversary of the Centre for Gender Studies.

Date: Today, 27.08.2027, 4:15–5:45 pm, followed by an apéro
Location: Centre for Gender Studies, SR 00.004, and online
Concept & organization: Bianca Prietl, Anna K. Kraft and Jasmin Schmidlin