About
I am an ESRC-funded PhD researcher at the University of Manchester.
My research concerns the processes by which subversive collective actors emerge in ostensibly difficult circumstances. Specifically, I am researching how workers come to take collective action in previously non-unionised employment.
In approaching this topic, I aim to synthesise methodological and theoretical insights from Critical Industrial Relations and Social Movement Studies, developing Cultural-Historical Activity Theory as a bridge between the two subdisciplines.
The project will therefore contribute an innovative conceptual approach to workplace conflict, as well as providing empirical insights into trade union decline and resurgence, agency and the labour process, and the rise of non-standard employment.
My interest in this field stems from my own previous experience as a trade unionist in multiple call centres.
My other research areas include broader social movement studies, class analysis, and platform labour.
I am from Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil in the Welsh Valleys, and alongside my academic work I am interested in the Welsh national question, the future of the Welsh language, and in the growing Welsh independence movement.
Amdanaf i
Rydw i’n ymgeisydd PhD ym Mhrifysgol Manceinion.
Mae fy ngwaith ymchwil yn ymwneud รข’r prosesau sydd yn ffurfio actorion torfol yn amodau arunig. Mae gen i ddiddordeb penodol mewn enghreifftiau o weithwyr yn gwrthwynebu gwaith bregus.
Trwy astudio hyn, rydw i’n bwriadu ymyrryd yn nadleuon dros awtonomi yn y gwaith, twf gwaith is-safonol, a dyfodol y mudiad llafur.
Mae fy niddordebau academaidd eraill yn cynnwys astudio mudiadau cymdeithasol, astudio dosbarthiadau cymdeithasol, a gweledigaethau gwrth-cyfalafol.
Rydw i’n dod o Aberfan yn wreiddiol ac, tu hwnt i academia, mae gen i ddiddordeb yn nyfodol yr iaith a’r mudiad dros annibyniaeth.
Morgan Rhys Powell 