Videos by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
This short film shines a light on the invisible lives of people working at night whilst the major... more This short film shines a light on the invisible lives of people working at night whilst the majority sleep or enjoy the nocturnal life. Invisible Lives is a short documentary that explores the experiences of Romanians working at night in London. This film features night workers in the construction and hotelier industries, a sex worker on the street and a market trader. They share their stories that encapsulate the highs and lows of night work, from moments of danger to moments of tranquillity when night meets day. These people's lives are hardened by threats from pimps and punters or from tiring 12-hour night shifts. The night workers' experiences are revealed in snapshots through audio stories combined with a visual portrait of nocturnal London -- a city that never sleeps.
IL was co-produced with filmmaker Tim Marrinan (Director of Burden, 2017). 56 views
Nocturnal Lives focuses on three nightworkers and the researcher-turned-filmmaker. This short fil... more Nocturnal Lives focuses on three nightworkers and the researcher-turned-filmmaker. This short film was shot at the New Spitalfields market, London, and was made as part of an doctoral fieldwork in anthropology. The fieldwork was funded by the Marie Skłodowska Curie research training programme funded by the 7th Framework Programme under Grant Agreement n. 316796 5 views
Awards
Audience Favorite Eventive Balloting | Workers Unite Virtual Film Festival
Official Se... more Awards
Audience Favorite Eventive Balloting | Workers Unite Virtual Film Festival
Official Selections
2020 Workers Unite Virtual Film Festival
2020 Global Indie Film Festival
Nightshift Spitalfields is a visually wrenching poem about people working the nightshift in 24/7 London. In this 10-minute documentary, Ali, a Bulgarian-Turkish porter at the night market, works six nights a week, often on 15-hour shift, loading and transporting goods. These nightshifts are incredibly demanding, mentally, emotionally and physically.
This short documentary was filmed in 2015 during the ethnographic study entitled "Invisible Migrants: Glocturnal cities' "other workers" in the post-circadian capitalist era", which was part of the doctoral thesis defended at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central EuropeanUniversity (Budapest Campus). The fieldwork was funded by the Marie Skłodowska Curie research training programme funded under FP7 Grant Agreement № 316796 35 views
This talk is part of a conversation moderated by Ann Lui, principal @futurefirm. I was delighted ... more This talk is part of a conversation moderated by Ann Lui, principal @futurefirm. I was delighted to join @cyruspenarroyo discussing our films at this event organised @futurefirm and hosted by @exhibitcolumbus and moderated by Ann Lui, principle at Future Firm. You can also watch both films (Nightshift Spitalfields, 2020, UK and Manifest Destiny, 2021, US) recorded here: https://vimeo.com/643286266
Till then, enjoy the presentation.
You can find more @anightworkshop on twitter and IG @thenightworkshop @futurefirm @exhibitcolumbus #film #night #nightowl #nightshift #nightshiftnurses #nightwork Articles by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
Eurozine, 2022
Though essential to the functioning of key infrastructures and services, night workers face addit... more Though essential to the functioning of key infrastructures and services, night workers face additional layers of precarity to their daytime counterparts. Their testimonies from London and Oradea convey a deep sense of insecurity, exacerbated by Brexit and the pandemic.
Anthropology News, 2022
The frenetic pace of this nighttime market feels exhausting for the onlooker. The dark is floodli... more The frenetic pace of this nighttime market feels exhausting for the onlooker. The dark is floodlit and dims the hustle and bustle of daytime worries beneath humming voices and the rumble of forklift engines.
IN THE FLOODLIT AISLES OF THIS NIGHT MARKET, LOADERS AND CAFÉ SERVERS PERFORM AN EXHAUSTING, FRUITY LABOR. WHAT CAN THEIR NOCTURNAL TRAVAILS TELL US ABOUT THE CURRENT STATE OF WORK?
Society for the Anthropology of Work, 2020
For nightworkers, the designation of frontline daytime laborers as essential has implicitly cast ... more For nightworkers, the designation of frontline daytime laborers as essential has implicitly cast those who work backstage and through the night as expendable
Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society (COMPAS) • Coronavirus and Mobility Forum , 2020
Nightworkers, who move in the night as a means of earning a living, remain largely invisible from... more Nightworkers, who move in the night as a means of earning a living, remain largely invisible from mainstream society, pandemic times or not. Yet their fears, uncertainties and acts of courage are equally revealing of what it means to be mobile in these times of immobility.
Licence: Creative Commons Attributions 4.0 International Licence (CC-BY-4.0)
Journal of Health Inequalities, 2019
This article reports data collected during an ethnographic research project conducted in the New ... more This article reports data collected during an ethnographic research project conducted in the New Spitalfields wholesale night market in London. It foregrounds and analyses the portraits of two protagonists and triangulates them with data collected in the wider project. This micro analysis reveals that low-skilled workers (loaders, drivers, cleaners, servers) of the night market engage in physical labour tasks to maintain a 24/7 city's economy appetite round-the-clock. The night workers' somatic experiences, rhythmic bodily labour that constitutes the workers' bodily capital, are discussed on the backdrop of challenges that they face while working the "graveyard" shift. The paper relays the workers' individual characteristics, such as the physical and mental abilities to endure and embody the duress of nightshift work. This paper proposes that bodily exhaustion, alienation, and sleep deprivation are amongst the factors causing precarious migrant night workers to become bioautomatons awake and working around the clock.
The main theoretical contribution of this paper is to show that the transitional processes from c... more The main theoretical contribution of this paper is to show that the transitional processes from circadian to post-circadian capitalist era have reduced capabilities for sociability of migrant night shift workers. It analyses the three main contributing factors to the corrosion of solidarity amongst migrant denizens: (a) the expansion of the working day into the night; (b) the major alterations of time over time, and the nurturing ground for these changes, (c) global cities, as the nurturing ground for occupational polarization.
The Field of Psychotherapy has seen a renaissance of mindfulness, the practice of being in the pr... more The Field of Psychotherapy has seen a renaissance of mindfulness, the practice of being in the present moment without judgement. Scientific evidence suggests that mindfulness helps to counter Depression and has a beneficial effect on the brain. The martial arts of Eastern origin, which work directly with the body, are as old as mindfulness; can they too be beneficial for mental health? Iulius-Cezar Macarie and Ron Roberst explore this question ...
Book Chapters by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
Visual Methodology in Migration Studies New Possibilities, Theoretical Implications, and Ethical Questions, 2021
Migrants working the night shift (MWNS) have been invisible to the public eye for far too long. T... more Migrants working the night shift (MWNS) have been invisible to the public eye for far too long. The failure to acknowledge the crucial role played by migrants working in the evening and night-time economy of developed societies is difficult to tackle with classical research tools alone. This chapter offers to novice and seasoned migration scholars a threefold methodological strategy to immerse, inhabit and to bring out of the dark a nocturnal landscape that has been invisible to diurnal people. The researcher’s nightworkshop’s innovative approach provides migration scholars with visual-analytical tools to capture the hidden experiences of MWNS. Theoretically, this chapter considers the broad aspects of representation (reel) and reality (real) of migrants in the public space and in migration scholarship. Night workers, the invisible people of the nocturnal city remain so to scholars, due to the impracticalities of doing nocturnal research (MacQuarie, 2019a). Empirically, therefore, the researcher’s nightworkshop’s strategy offers a solution to the puzzle of ‘invisibility’ of night shift workers. But it also reckons with the fact that to make visible the working lives in the realm of the night is a daunting task for scholars. Readers should interpret the notion of visibilisation with caution, using it as a visual metaphor to expose the factors that alter the night-shift workers’ precarious working conditions. This challenge is addressed here, through efforts that bridge the contingent of night workers, their minds and bodies that share the precarious landscape of nightwork with the researcher – alert and awake via the senses and suffering turned into skills.
Book Reviews by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
Society for the Anthropology of Work, 2022
Book review of Suzanne M. Hall's (2021) The Migrant's Paradox: Street Livelihoods and Marginal Ci... more Book review of Suzanne M. Hall's (2021) The Migrant's Paradox: Street Livelihoods and Marginal Citizenship in Britain by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
Society for the Anthropology of Work, 2021
A review of 'After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back' by Julie... more A review of 'After the Gig: How the Sharing Economy Got Hijacked and How to Win It Back' by Juliet B. Schor (2020). Oakland: University of California Press.
Cite: MacQuarie, J.-C. (2021). Book Review: After the Gig. Society for the Anthropology of Work. https://doi.org/10.21428/1d6be30e.2aed30ed
Marginalia, Dec 2010
Agustín‘s book originated in the mid 90's with her outreach work on various projects (with asylu... more Agustín‘s book originated in the mid 90's with her outreach work on various projects (with asylum seekers, in HIV/AIDS prevention, studies of tourism and migrant sex workers). Her fieldwork was carried out with migrant sex workers in Western Europe, but not exclusively. In Agustín‘s eloquent chapters, she refers to sex workers coming from Central and Eastern Europe. The examples she uses illustrate the post-1989 boom of sex labourers from South-East Europe (the case of Albanians in Italy) and Eastern Europe (sex workers from Ukraine, Poland, Romania and Moldova in the UK) migrating to the West.
Books by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
Springer Cham, 2023
This book captures the hidden labour of migrant nightworkers in 24/7 London. It argues that late ... more This book captures the hidden labour of migrant nightworkers in 24/7 London. It argues that late capitalism normalises nightwork, yet refuses to recognise the associated problems, from lack of decent working conditions to the seizure of the workers’ private time for self-development, family and social life. The book shows how the articulation of nightworkers’ subjectivities and socialities happens at the intersection between migration, precarity and nightwork, and traces how each of these dimensions magnifies the lived experience of the others. It further reveals that any possibilities for cooperation or solidarity in the workplace between migrant nightworkers become fragile and secondary to their survival of the nightshift. It also elucidates the mechanisms that hinder cohesion between vulnerable groups placed temporally and socially on a different par to the mainstream societies. As such, this book is an excellent resource for labour regulators, experts and student researchers in migration, work and gender.
The book offers a deeply empathic and engaging portrayal of the production of disciplined and exploitable manual labor in permanent nightshift cities. It cogently unpacks the experiences of embodied precarity through the largely unseen micro-practices of workplaces that entrap migrant laborers. The nightnographic component adds an original dimension to the inquiry.
Violetta Zentai, Professor of Public Policy, Central European University
In the last 35 years, Western scientists have acknowledged the psychological/therapeutic benefits... more In the last 35 years, Western scientists have acknowledged the psychological/therapeutic benefits gained through practice of Oriental martial arts. Rather recent writings of analytical psychologists have analysed the methods of ancient martial arts that combine combat with spiritual training to develop a healthy mind, body and spirit. Up to now, very limited research has been carried out into the role martial arts training plays in one's self-development. This study places martial arts in the same line with traditional somato and verbal psychotherapies concerned with psychological wellbeing. The investigative research carried out in this book follows Carl G. Jung's Analytical Psychology framework and explores the aspects and means found in the practice of martial arts and their connectedness with the process of Self-realisation. The study illustrates the journeys of seven martial artists and analyzes the meanings they make of their journeys on the Way of the Warrior to wholeness, inner peace and harmony. This book will be an interesting reading for practitioners of both fields, Psychology and martial arts or anyone else interested in their own journey of personal realisation.
Research & Working Papers by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
London’s New Spitalfields market night shift workers face weak possibilities for solidarity, and ... more London’s New Spitalfields market night shift workers face weak possibilities for solidarity, and so presumably they are alienated from the mainstream, diurnal society. Since, generally people working nights permanently will suffer from isolation, sleep deprivation, physical exhaustion and mental alienation. Because, evidence from occupational health inquiries show how night shift work disrupts the circadian rhythms (Arendt 2010), and from anthropological and global studies showing that unmet social expectations lead to “hysteresis effects” (Bourdieu, 1984) and biological dissonance amongst the “walking ghosts” of India’s call centre agents (Aneesh 2012:527–29). Unless, of course, people in other job sectors are not working at night permanently, on 11/12-Hour night shifts like the respondents in this study or they are highly skilled migrants capable of buying solutions for sociability. The paper analyses firstly, three main contributing factors: (a) the expansion of the working day into the night; (b) the major alterations of time over time, and (c) the global city, the nurturing ground for producing the bio-automatons maintaining its global night-time economy. Secondly, the four migrant night shifters’ ethnographic portraits canvased here, expose their resilience in enduring work precariousness, and corrosion of social ties and networks with their families, away and at home.
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Videos by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
IL was co-produced with filmmaker Tim Marrinan (Director of Burden, 2017).
Audience Favorite Eventive Balloting | Workers Unite Virtual Film Festival
Official Selections
2020 Workers Unite Virtual Film Festival
2020 Global Indie Film Festival
Nightshift Spitalfields is a visually wrenching poem about people working the nightshift in 24/7 London. In this 10-minute documentary, Ali, a Bulgarian-Turkish porter at the night market, works six nights a week, often on 15-hour shift, loading and transporting goods. These nightshifts are incredibly demanding, mentally, emotionally and physically.
This short documentary was filmed in 2015 during the ethnographic study entitled "Invisible Migrants: Glocturnal cities' "other workers" in the post-circadian capitalist era", which was part of the doctoral thesis defended at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central EuropeanUniversity (Budapest Campus). The fieldwork was funded by the Marie Skłodowska Curie research training programme funded under FP7 Grant Agreement № 316796
Till then, enjoy the presentation.
You can find more @anightworkshop on twitter and IG @thenightworkshop @futurefirm @exhibitcolumbus #film #night #nightowl #nightshift #nightshiftnurses #nightwork
Articles by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
IN THE FLOODLIT AISLES OF THIS NIGHT MARKET, LOADERS AND CAFÉ SERVERS PERFORM AN EXHAUSTING, FRUITY LABOR. WHAT CAN THEIR NOCTURNAL TRAVAILS TELL US ABOUT THE CURRENT STATE OF WORK?
Licence: Creative Commons Attributions 4.0 International Licence (CC-BY-4.0)
Book Chapters by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
Book Reviews by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
Cite: MacQuarie, J.-C. (2021). Book Review: After the Gig. Society for the Anthropology of Work. https://doi.org/10.21428/1d6be30e.2aed30ed
Books by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
The book offers a deeply empathic and engaging portrayal of the production of disciplined and exploitable manual labor in permanent nightshift cities. It cogently unpacks the experiences of embodied precarity through the largely unseen micro-practices of workplaces that entrap migrant laborers. The nightnographic component adds an original dimension to the inquiry.
Violetta Zentai, Professor of Public Policy, Central European University
Research & Working Papers by Julius-Cezar MacQuarie
IL was co-produced with filmmaker Tim Marrinan (Director of Burden, 2017).
Audience Favorite Eventive Balloting | Workers Unite Virtual Film Festival
Official Selections
2020 Workers Unite Virtual Film Festival
2020 Global Indie Film Festival
Nightshift Spitalfields is a visually wrenching poem about people working the nightshift in 24/7 London. In this 10-minute documentary, Ali, a Bulgarian-Turkish porter at the night market, works six nights a week, often on 15-hour shift, loading and transporting goods. These nightshifts are incredibly demanding, mentally, emotionally and physically.
This short documentary was filmed in 2015 during the ethnographic study entitled "Invisible Migrants: Glocturnal cities' "other workers" in the post-circadian capitalist era", which was part of the doctoral thesis defended at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central EuropeanUniversity (Budapest Campus). The fieldwork was funded by the Marie Skłodowska Curie research training programme funded under FP7 Grant Agreement № 316796
Till then, enjoy the presentation.
You can find more @anightworkshop on twitter and IG @thenightworkshop @futurefirm @exhibitcolumbus #film #night #nightowl #nightshift #nightshiftnurses #nightwork
IN THE FLOODLIT AISLES OF THIS NIGHT MARKET, LOADERS AND CAFÉ SERVERS PERFORM AN EXHAUSTING, FRUITY LABOR. WHAT CAN THEIR NOCTURNAL TRAVAILS TELL US ABOUT THE CURRENT STATE OF WORK?
Licence: Creative Commons Attributions 4.0 International Licence (CC-BY-4.0)
Cite: MacQuarie, J.-C. (2021). Book Review: After the Gig. Society for the Anthropology of Work. https://doi.org/10.21428/1d6be30e.2aed30ed
The book offers a deeply empathic and engaging portrayal of the production of disciplined and exploitable manual labor in permanent nightshift cities. It cogently unpacks the experiences of embodied precarity through the largely unseen micro-practices of workplaces that entrap migrant laborers. The nightnographic component adds an original dimension to the inquiry.
Violetta Zentai, Professor of Public Policy, Central European University
Keywords: Romania, Romanian Roma, London, Europeanisation, mobility, work, European Union (EU) accession, United Kingdom (UK).
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Short-term: Develop materials to highlight WMN’s problems associated with night shift work (social exclusion, fatigue, sleeping, health costs, individual factors, social and family factors, errors and accidents occurring on nightshifts due to duress) that will have real links to the developing awareness of the magnitude of the problems present in developed societies that depend on nightwork/-ers, and how it affects the society at large.
Long-term: highlight the long-term costs to health of nightworkers; to develop along the principles set in the UN2030 agenda for SDG no. 5&8 (specifically), in policy briefs for steering groups and on open access platforms (SDG Knowledge Hub, IISD) to address the future of women in work.
Synopsis
Global cities like London have an incessant rhythm of consumption that needs to be maintained around-the-clock. This short film shines a light on the invisible lives of people working at night whilst the majority sleep or enjoy the nocturnal life. Invisible Lives is a short documentary that explores the experiences of Romanians working at night in London.
This film features night workers in the construction and hotelier industries, a sex worker on the street and a market trader. They share their stories that encapsulate the highs and lows of night work, from moments of danger to moments of tranquillity when night meets day.
These people’s lives are hardened by threats from pimps and punters or from tiring 12-hour night shifts. The night workers’ experiences are revealed in snapshots through audio stories combined with a visual portrait of nocturnal London– a city that never sleeps.
Contributors
Iulius-Cezar Macarie grew up in Romania and collaborates with Nightlaboratory. From September 2013, he is an ‘INTEGRIM’ Early-Stage Researcher at the Center for Policy Studies, and in parallel a PhD Candidate in Sociology and Social Anthropology, at the Central European University,Budapest.
Tim Marrinan is a documentary film maker working primarily exploring issues relating to art, culture and society. He currently makes films for the National Theatre and his recent short film Beam Drop screened internationally at film festivals and was aired on television in the UK (Sky Arts), the US (Plum TV).
Invisible Lives is now available to watch online. Please click on LightSparks Creatives on Vimeo http://bit.ly/invsblelvs and Youtube: http://bit.ly/InvisibleLivesDoc
1 Martie 2022
Lansarea Cartei lucrătorilor de noapte: Propunerea unui set special de măsuri pentru lucrătorii invizibili din orașele cu schimburi de noapte din Uniunea Europeană și din Regatul Unit al Marii Britanii.
Lumea muncii de noapte are nevoie urgentă de transformare. Cu toate acestea, nimic nu se poate transforma până când nu se află ce trebuie reparat și reînnoit.
Nici o transformare profundă nu se întâmplă fără remediere.
UNE NOUVELLE CHARTE DES TRAVAILLEURS ET TRAVAILLEUSES DE NUIT QUI VISE PROTEGER LE TRAVAIL INVISIBLE EN HORAIRES DE NUIT DANS LES VILLES DU ROYAUME-UNI ET DE L’UNION EUROPEENNE
Il est urgent de transformer le secteur du travail de nuit. Dans cet objectif, il faut identifier ce qui peut être réparé et ce qui doit être complètement repensé dans le système actuel
1ER MARS 2022
La Charte des Travailleurs/ses de Nuit affirme le besoin de reconnaître la contribution des travailleuses et travailleuses de nuit dont de nombreuses personnes migrantes, à nos sociétés. Elle demande que toutes les travailleurs et travailleuses, de jour comme de nuit, soient sur un pied d’égalité.
Where do they come from? Why do they work at night? And how does night work impact their social and family lives? This research makes two important points:
1 - Nightwork should be regarded as important as day work and regulated as such.
2 - Migrant night workers are particularly vulnerable because of the nature of the work and their economic situation.
This series highlights key problems with nightwork aimed to engage policy makers and show that London’s unseen migrants in low-skilled sectors are not a number to be ignored. They include:
+ Three night workers case studies: Market trader, Rickshaw Driver, Chef in Chinatown
+ Key Problems with Nightwork
+ Recommendations for Improving Night Workers’ Livelihoods
In the UK, misinformation about Romanian Roma is everywhere. Mostly, in the sensationalist tabloid press (such as this and this) The Romanian Roma are an ethnic minority of 2 million Roma people in the UK (by unofficial figures). Roma in Europe and Asia Minor however, are estimated to be between 4 - 9 million, and even as high as 14 million. Romanian citizens (of non-Roma and Roma ethnicity) speak the same official language and face the same legal restrictions in terms of free movement for workers.
This series of reports aim to show and analyse how the present circumstances impact on the lives of Romanian Roma migrating to work and live in London. They include:
+ Main challenges that impact on the lives of Romanian migrants seeking work in London
+ Four profiles of Romanian Roma men and women
+ What would you choose? The practical choices faced by Romanians living in the UK
+ Recommendations: What next? to policy makers to improve the lives of A2 migrants
(a) At which point can s/he say that they get used to the night rhythms of life in-out of the research that s/he conducts? When should the researcher pull out of the field, conscious of the tiredness? How does tiredness affect the chances of gathering useful material?
(b) By turning 'native' (Wacquant, 2014), i.e. living an antithetic way of life to diurnal creatures – just like my respondents I too have my boots and hands dirty while I load produce or drive the forklift around the market, six nights per week, on 10.5 hour shift, with 5 hours day sleep. Depth of participation and length in the field, and being up and working at night made me empathetic with the workers’ precarity, which perhaps affected my power of observing the less-visible forms of solidarity or competition. Or their reactions sometimes helped or other times hindered my nocturnal investigation?
The poster highlights the aspects of such method (Wacquant, 2000/4) used to capture the workers of the nocturnal cities of future, invisible otherwise to the diurnal eye and mind.
JOINT TRAINING EVENT | 2013
ROMANIAN ROMA AND NON-ROMA: ACTING ON
IDENTIFIED KEY ISSUSES
Closing date: 21 March 2022
panel P023 "Health policies in chronic and crisis times: Contradictions and vulnerabilities among dispossessed populations" has been accepted by #easabelfast2022 scientific committee.
Conveners:
Julius-Cezar MacQuarie New Europe College & CEU Democracy Institute
Cansu Civelek University of Vienna & CEU Democracy Institute
Discussant:
Violetta Zentai CEU Democracy Institute
Please share widely!
Use the link below or message here to get in touch wirh Cansu Civelek or myself if you have any questions.
Thanks a bunch!
https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easa2022/p/11420#
Final INTEGRIM-SCRIBANI conference, taking place in Bilbao, July 6-7-8, 2016
11th May 2015 - CEDEM, University of Liège, Belgium
Religion and the political participation and mobilization of immigrant groups. A transatlantic perspective
28th and 29th May 2015 - CEG & IGOT, University of Lisbon
Social integration policies and equitable cities
8th June 2015 - University of Deusto, Bilbao
From race to culture: Ongoing developments in ethnic studies and its repercussions on belonging and identity politics
18th June 2015 - University of Sussex, Brighton
Migrant labour market integration
Further details: http://www.integrim.eu/integrim-scientific-thematic-workshops-2/