This workshop co-hosted by CLaSP and the Notes from Below collective, will focus on the historical and theoretical developments, and political implications of militant workers’ inquiry.

Developed first by Marx and other members of the International Workingmen’s Association of the 1860s as a tool for information gathering, solidarity, and political transformation of the oppressed classes, it became a practice of militant coresearch between workers and militant intellectuals in Italy’s industrial north almost a century later.

Join us to engage with Francesca Ioannilli (Un cane in chiesa. Militanza, categorie e conricerca di Romano Alquati 2020), Clark McAllister (Karl Marx’s Workers’ Inquiry: International History, Reception and Responses 2022), Gigi Roggero (Italian Operaismo: Genealogy, History, Method 2023), and Jamie Woodcock (Troublemaking: Why You Should Organise Your Workplace 2023) who will discuss the historical roots, theoretical shifts and political implications of this set of practices.