Labor in Global Speculative Fiction

In their construction of possible futures and alternate realities, science fiction and other forms of speculative literature have often provided a space to reflect on the cultural and technological shifts of the present. This is certainly true in our current moment, in which speculative fiction seems to have become an essential medium for exploring questions of increased automation, the looming threat -- or promise -- of artificial intelligence, and the increasingly interconnected global financial systems and networks of production and consumption. This panel seeks to explore the ways in which speculative genres have examined the question of labor in both past and present. How have authors, filmmakers, and artists employed speculative genres – science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc. – to consider the future of work, employment, and labor rights? In what ways have speculative fictions been used to illuminate historical structures of exploitation? How do stories of laboring robots, trolls, and jinn, along with interstellar braceros and gig workers expand or reframe current conversations on precarity and the effects of technology on working life? How have speculative visions of work and workers been used to question larger worldviews or cultural hierarchies? We welcome submissions that engage the question of labor in speculative fiction in different historical moments, as well as those that reflect on connections between labor and speculative genres themselves.