Prof. Dr. Martina Sproll

Professor for Social Sciences (with a focus on structural change and the Welfare State in international perspectives)

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Campus Schöneberg - Building B
Room: B 2.46

Academic and Professional Career

• Since 2016: Professor of Social Sciences (with a focus on structural change and the Welfare State in international perspectives), Berlin School of Economics and Law
• 2013-2016: Research Associate and Lecturer, Institute for Latin American Studies, FU Berlin (Area of specialization: Sociology/Labour markets and social structure in Latin America)
• 2011-2013: Postdoctoral Researcher, desiguALdades.net Berlin (international research network on interdependent inequalities in Latin America)
• 2008-2011: Research Associate, Institute of Sociology, Philipps-Universität Marburg
• 2009: Doctorate, JWG-Universität Frankfurt (High Tech für Niedriglohn: Neotayloristische Produktionsregimes in der IT-Industrie in Brasilien und Mexiko – Low wages for HighTech: Neotaylorist Production Regimes in the IT-Industry in Brazil and Mexico)
• 2000-2008: Research Associate and doctoral candidate at the Institute of Social Research, Frankfurt am Main
• 1993-2000: Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Major in Sociology, minor in Economics, Political Science, and Cultural Anthropology, 1996: 1 year period of study abroad at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil
• 1984-1993: vocational training and employment as power electronics technician, Thyssen Stahl AG, Duisburg; trade union representative and member of the workers council

Expertise in

• Sociology and Political Economy of Latin America (particularly Brazil and Mexico)
• Labour Sociology, Globalization of Work and Production
• Gender relations, precarization, (intersectionality of) social inequalities
• Information- and Communication Technology (Hardware and IT-Services)

External relations

• Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS)
• International Sociological Association (ISA)
• Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutsche Lateinamerika-Forschung (ADLAF)
• Assoziation für Kritische Gesellschaftsforschung (AKG)
• Hans-Böckler-Stiftung (HBS)
• IG Metall
• Several contacts with NGO´s and universities in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina Uruguay, Chile

Teaching Focus

• Restructuring and social regulation of work and production
• Social inequalities and socio-structural change
• Political Economy of Europe
• Migration, racism

Research Projects

• 2011-2013: “Transnational Regulation of Labor Markets and the Emergence of New Lines of Social Inequality: Processes of Social Mobility of Women in the Brazilian Banking Sector“, (desiguALdades.net)
• 2008-2011: „Kooperative Arbeitspolitik? Arbeitsgestaltung und Geschlechterpolitik in innovativen Betrieben“, Philipps-Universität Marburg
• 2003-2008: several months of research stays in Mexico and Brazil (doctoral thesis: “Low Wages for High Tech: Neotaylorist Production Regimes in the IT Industry in Brazil and Mexico”)
• 2002-2008: „Neue Produktionsmodelle und internationale Arbeitsteilung in der Elektronikindustrie – Global-regionale Kontraktfertigung im pazifischen Raum und Mittel- und Osteuropa“. Institute of Social Research, Frankfurt
• 2000-2001: „Transnationale Kontraktfertigung im informationstechnischen Industriesektor. Arbeitspolitische Implikationen eines neuen Modells industrieller Fertigung in den USA und Europa“, Institute of Social Research, Frankfurt

Selected Publications

• 2016: Missing Links in Service Value Chain Analysis – Space, Identity and Inequality in Brazilian Call Centres, in: Flecker, Jörg (ed.): Space, Place and Global Digital Work, London: Palgrave, pp. 105-125.
• 2016: Globale Arbeit und Produktion, in: Boatcă, M./ Fischer, K./ Hauck, G. (Hg.): Handbuch Entwicklungsforschung, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, S. 249-260.
• 2015: „Gleichstellung als arbeitspolitisches Feld. Symbolische Gewalt und Leistungsregime“, in: WSI Nachrichten 1/2015 (with M. Funder), S. 43-50.
• 2014: Capitalist Peripheries: Perspectives on Precarisation from the Global South and North, Special Issue, Austrian Journal for Development Studies (JEP), Vol. 30, No. 4/2014 (Ed. with Ingrid Wehr).
• 2014: “Precarisation and new class formations. The case of call centers in the Brazilian banking sector”, in: Sproll/Wehr (eds.): Capitalist Peripheries: Perspectives on Precarisation from the Global South and North, Special Issue, Austrian Journal for Development Studies (JEP), Vol. 30, No. 4/2014, Wien, pp. 111-132.
• 2013: From Silicon Valley to Shenzhen. Global Production and Work in the IT-Industry, Lanham MD.: Rowman & Littlefield (with Lüthje, B. /Hürtgen, S. /Pawlicki, P.).
• 2013: Precarization, Genderization and Neotaylorist Work. How Global Value Chain Restructuring Affects Banking Sector Workers in Brazil. Berlin: desiguALdades Working Papers Series, No. 44, www.desigualdades.net/Resources/Working_Paper/44_WP_Sproll_Online_revised.pdf.
• 2013: Arbeit im Übergang zum „Postfordismus“ – Wie nützlich sind regulationstheoretische und arbeitspolitische Ansätze? In: Atzmüller, Roland/ Becker, Joachim/ Brand, Ulrich/ Oberndorfer, Lukas/ Redak, Vanessa/ Sablowski, Thomas (Hg.): Fit für die Krise? Perspektiven der Regulationstheorie. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, S. 170-186.
• 2012: Symbolische Gewalt und Leistungsregime. Geschlechterungleichheit in der betrieblichen Arbeitspolitik, Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot (with M. Funder).
• 2009: High-Tech für Niedriglohn: Neotayloristische Produktionsregimes in der IT-Industrie in Brasilien und Mexiko, Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot (doctoral thesis).