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Faculty 5
Chair of Economic and Industrial Sociology Gastprof. Dr. phil. Janina Puder

Dr. Virginia Kimey Pflücke

Erich Weinert Str. 1-2
03046 Cottbus

LG 10, Raum 210
T +49 (0) 355 69 2523

Email: pfluecke(at)b-tu.de

Consultation: Wendsday, 11:30-12:30 Uhr (please register by email)

Since 2019: Habilitation on labour and gender relations in the decarbonization of Lusatia (2022/23: parental leave).

Academic education:

2018: Researcher at the Chair of Economic and Labor Sociology at BTU Cottbus.

2017: Doctorate (Dr. rer. pol.) at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne. Doctoral scholarship from the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (IMPRS-SPCE).
Dissertation topic: When domestic work is paid for. The transformation of labor relations in the private household in Spain and Uruguay. (Original title: Wenn Hausarbeit bezahlt wird.)

Visiting researcher at the University of Göttingen (2017), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2016), Columbia University in, New York City (2015), Universidad de la República del Uruguay, Montevideo (2015), among others.

Teaching at the University of Cologne, University of Duisburg-Essen, Centre for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies / Humboldt University, among others.

2013: Graduated as Magistra Artium with outstanding achievements in Sociology and Theater Studies at the University of Leipzig.

Memberships:

DGS - German Sociological Association
- Section for Labour and Industrial Sociology 
- Section for Women's and Gender Studies 
ISA - International Sociological Association

Selected lectures:

June 2025 Lecture in Dortmund at a Conference of the Hans Böckler Foundation “Humans of Late Capitalism?” on forms of subjectivation in late capitalism and Critical Theory. Title: “Labor Research and Critical Theory - Methodological Implications for Labour Research”. Link: ipp.ht.tu-dortmund.de/nachrichtendetail/tagung-humans-of-late-capitalism-subjektivierungsformen-und-die-aktualitaet-kritischer-theorie-51181/

May 2025

- Presentation of an HKWM dictionary entry on the keyword “self-determination of gender” with Prof. Dr. Frigga Haug at the conference of the Institute for Critical Theory, Berlin, on 31.05.2025. Link: inkrit.de/neuinkrit/mediadaten/InkriT25-Programm-akt.285251.pdf

- Lecture “Conflicts in structural change” for the DGB (German Trade Union Confederation) - ver.di educational trip to the coal phase-out in Lusatia, 22.05.2025

- Lecture “Gender relations in structural change” - at the conference "Transformative (social) science? Opportunities, limits and dangers of a design claim" of the TRAWOS Institute of the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences in Görlitz, 22/23.05.2025, trawos.hszg.de/veranstaltungen/tagungen/transformative-sozial-wissenschaft-chancen-grenzen-und-gefahren-eines-gestaltungsanspruchs

- Lecture at the CTCR - “Conference for Critical Theory Rome” - Presentation of the anthology “Arbeit in der Kritischen Theorie” and three theses on labor research from a critical-theoretical perspective, on 13.05.2025 Link: sites.google.com/view/ictcir/

November 2024: Book presentation of the anthology “Arbeit in der Kritischen Theorie” as co-editor in conversation with Alexandra Ivanova, Marcel Stoetzler and Stephan Voswinckel. PRISMEN event of the IsF - Institute for Social Research at the bookstore marx & Co. in Frankfurt a.M.

November and October 2024: Work yesterday, today, tomorrow. Lecture for a workshop of the Federal Agency for Civic Education (BpB) and the association Zivilcourage e.V. in the Fabrik der Fäden, Plauen and with the museum “Utopie und Alltag” in the “Aktivist” in Eisenhüttenstadt.

April 2024: - Gendered Impacts on Alienation in Academic Work: A Case Study of Brandenburg Universities During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

- A Gendered Labor Process in Academia? Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Academic Work at Brandenburg Universities.

Presentations on the study for the LaKoG (Landeskonferenz der Gleichstellungsbeauftragten) Brandenburg on the change of work in academia during the Corona pandemic (together with Dr. Katrin Coobs and Dr. Isabel Alkhasli) at the International Labour Process Conference (ILPC) at the University of Göttingen.

June 2022: BTU for Future - Coal vs. care? Why the coal phase-out will not bring an “end to work” in Lusatia. In the BTU4Future lecture series, Prof. Dr. Melanie Jäger-Erben, Environmental and Technical Sociology.

October 2021: digital panel discussion on “Care and coal - the future of work in Lusatia” - organized by the IASS (Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies).

Dr. Virginia Kimey Pflücke is interested in a Critical Sociology of work and gender relations and social nature relations therein. She received her PhD on the historical transformation of paid domestic work (at the MPI for the Study of Societies, Cologne) and is currently researching the transformation of the former industrial labor society in Lusatia, focusing on the interaction of economic structural change (the end of coal extractivism), social transformation (changes in labor and gender relations after 1990) and social nature relations.

Kimey Pflücke is involved in the application for a Centre for Structural Change and Regional Development (ZeStuR) in the Lausitz Science Park at BTU (Link: https://www.b-tu.de/fakultaet6/forschung/schwerpunkte/transformationsraeume).

Main areas of research and teaching
- Changes in the labor market in Lusatia - connection between post-industrialism and gender relations
- Socio-economic crisis and transformation issues, social nature relations
- Feminist critique of ideology, critique of methods 
- Critical theory of labor, critique of political economy
- Teaching in the modules “Introduction to the Methods of Empirical Social Research”, Economic Sociology, Sociology of Work and Employment, Social Change and Continuity.

Supervision of theses on the topics of change in the world of work and gender relations and on the socio-economic crisis and transformation