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The translation of Familiar Stranger by Stuart Hall into German was a particular challenge, especially with regard to the concept of race. Hall uses the term ‘race’ to fan out the countless cultural meanings, which are not covered by a homogeneous theoretical conception of race. The result is the ambivalent articulation of race–as well as of colour–which unites racist as well as emancipatory meanings in the same term. This ambivalent chain of meanings has no equivalent in the German language, as the conceptual history of race cannot be detached from the context of German fascism, either theoretically or in everyday language. Another requirement was the translation of gender, not because Hall problematizes this, but because the German language is a deeply rooted genus-typifying language. With some examples of translation, we want to show how we have tried, to consciously act in the space of the displacement of culture, to recognize the specific situatedness of the heterogeneous representations that Hall talks about in Familiar Stranger, and not to unify them in favour of a homogeneous German textuality.

In this chapter the authors analyse different forms of gender and class discrimination in Spanish academic institutions. Androcentrism in terms of the structures of academic institutions, the meritocratic system, the rhythms and contents of work present barriers for women advancing into positions of leadership. The intersectionality of gender and class provides different kinds of hurdles and possibilities for women and men from middle-class and working-class backgrounds. Relationships between (mostly male) supervisors and men and women researchers tend to strengthen men's capabilities of developing their own scientific aspirations and claims to leadership, while women tend to become subordinated supporters of their supervisors' objectives. Power structures dominated by men's values have the effect that some women do not perceive leadership positions as desirable.

In this chapter, I argue for the necessity to introduce the concept of work (labor) as a mediator between human and non-human lives. I discuss the main insights of influential conceptualizations of the society-nature relationship: a non-reductionist concept of nature as social; "sympoiesis" the co-construction of the world by human and non-human natures; a history understanding the conflictual interrelated effects of human and non-human natures within the capitalist mode of production; harmony between human and non-human natures as a perspective to overcome the capitalist exploitation of workers and the earth; labor that creates and cares for life as a model for labor in general. I argue with Marx that the specificity of human work is its ability to transform human and non-human natures on a global scale, which makes it potentially destructive. Capitalism realizes that potential. To hinder this, indigenous workers, industrial, service, and care workers need to connect and resist. We need an overarching theoretical framework that includes all relations of production as dependent on each other to understand how such connections might happen.

This chapter analyses social protests against environmental degradation in Brazil in a context of expanding capitalist relations of production and agribusiness. Data on agrarian protests reveal the main strategies carried out by peasants and small farmers in their struggles for land. The growth of agrarian and environmental conflicts reveals the destructive power of corporations, agribusiness and the state as they threaten nature, labour, local economies and popular cultures, and thus life in general. In a second part the chapter follows the individual trajectories of peasants and rural workers who became leaders of women's movements and trade unions resisting environmental destruction and creating commons communities. They recount how they have learned to become part of the resistance in local unions and political movements and parties. Present as a salient element in all life histories was Liberation Theology, which created a lasting legacy of values centred on justice, fairness and a concern for people and nature.

Räthzel discusses the transformative work of union environmentalists in one of the largest Spanish trade union confederations. She explores how 'organic intellectuals' coming from the resistance movement against the Franco regime were capable to take advantage of a favourable conjuncture of societal and organisational conditions. Connecting Marxism with environmentalism, they created an extensive set of environmental policies and structures, including hundreds of environmental representatives throughout the country, a research institute and an international organisation reaching out to unions in the Global South. Based on documents and the life-histories of the protagonists, it is argued that the success, crisis and revival of this 'environmental project' can only be understood by analysing the relationship between structural affordances and the role of individuals as promoters of change.

Environmental labour studies has grown into a research area with multiple studies of working-class environmentalism, predominantly in the Global North. To encourage comparative research and global political alliances, this handbook includes environmental struggles of Indigenous populations, subsistence farmers, fisherfolk and commoners. The introduction presents ways of thinking about the relationships between society, labour and nature, and a broader notion of work to include unwaged and subsistence workers in the Global North and South. It concludes with an outline of the book's six sections: histories of workers' environmental engagements globally; unionists, Indigenous peoples and environmentalists seeking common ground; environmental struggles of farmers, commoners and communities; unions and state environmental policies; organic intellectuals; and rethinking and broadening the concepts of work, work/energy, labour-nature, design and the future of work.

Introducing Part V, this chapter describes the method of life-histories used by its authors and outlines the main characteristics of industrial relations in the USA, the UK and Spain.

Räthzel discusses different ways of thinking the society–nature relationship: nature as social, as sympoiesis, humans and non-human nature 'working together', capital as a producer and product of nature, capital as a destroyer of nature. These conceptualisations do not account sufficiently for the centrality of work as the mediator between human and non-human nature. Merging Marx's concept of work with Moore's analysis of capitalism as exploiting waged and appropriating unpaid work and with Haug's notion of gender relations as relations of production it is argued, could provide a framework for understanding the production of the means of life and the production of life (care work paid and unpaid) as processes of communicating vessels. This could also help to link hitherto separate studies of labour environmentalism, environmental justice, and care work.