Dana Tholen has been research fellow at the Chair of Sociology - Transnationalisation, Migration and Work since October 2022. She researches and teaches at the interface of sociology of labour and migration on the topics of transnational labour markets, migrant labour and the relationship between trade unions and migration. In doing so, she works primarily with qualitative social research methods. Specifically, she is interested in the conditions of migrant labour between border regime and precarization in Germany and the possibilities of unionization in migrant-dominated sectors. Her dissertation examines working conditions in the courier, express and parcel delivery sector and explores strategies and perspectives of union organizing efforts there.
Research Fellow | Sociology / Transnationalization, Migration and Work
Ruhr-Universität Bochum | Faculty of Social Science | Building GD E1-317 - Technical No. 74 | D-44780 Bochum | Phone: +49 (0)234 / 32-24067
Office hours: appointment via e-mail, in presence or by zoom, building GD E1-311
On the Last Mile.
Migrant Agency and Union Organizing in the Context of Fragmentation and Precarization in Parcel Delivery Services.
The parcel delivery industry exemplifies the dynamism and competitiveness of e-commerce industries on the one hand, but also the hardships that are evident in the working conditions of these industries: from fragmented employment relationships and subcontractor structures, to digital control mechanisms, low pay and hard physical labour, most of which is performed by migrant workers.
In her dissertation, Dana Tholen focusses on both the perspective of the largely migrant employees and that of the trade unions. She examines the agency of employees in the context of precarious working and living conditions and the resulting conditions for (trade union) organisation in the sector. Her thesis is that the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion to which migrant workers are subject in German (labour) society also determine their power resources in the work process and thus their chances of successfully organising themselves. How migrant workers and trade unions deal with this situation and which practices and strategies of resilience, resistance and organising they develop is the research interest of this thesis.
To explore these questions, Dana Tholen relies on methods of reconstructive qualitative social research, such as document analyses, problem-centred interviews and narrative expert interviews. The approach is based on grounded theory methodology in order to systematically uncover connections and interpretations of migrant and trade union perspectives in the still little-researched field.
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Last update: Mar 19, 2025
