Lola Loustaunau
Credentials: PhD
Position title: Assistant Professor
Email: lola.loustaunau@wisc.edu
Address:
she/they
BA in Political Science from the University of Buenos Aires, MS and PhD in Sociology from University of Oregon. As a researcher, teacher and activist, Dr. Loustaunau has led multiple research projects focusing on job quality, public policy, and collective organizing. Her work has been published in Labor Studies Journal, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and Sociological Perspectives. She has also been a Vice President at Large at the American Federation of Teachers-Oregon, Vice President of Political Education at the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, among other leadership positions in the labor movement. Her current research focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on migrant workers in food processing, and their experiences of resistance and collective action.
Applied research
‘The Hands that Feed Us: endemic precarity and pandemic resistance among migrant food processing workers’ – This project is based on qualitative interviews with food processing workers and labor and community organizers discussing the working conditions in the industry, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and following different processes of resistance and collective organizing.
‘Hidden Precarity: ‘Self-employed’ Family Child Care Providers Experiences of Unstable Scheduling, Hours, and Income’ -This project uses qualitative interviews to analyze the experiences and working conditions of home-based childcare providers in Oregon.
Selected publications
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Alvarez, C. H., L. Loustaunau, L. Petrucci, and E. Scott. “Impossible Choices: How Workers Manage Unpredictable Scheduling Practices”. Labor Studies Journal , Vol. 45, no. 2, 2020, pp. 186-13.
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Lafer, G., and L. Loustaunau. “Fear at Work: An Inside Account of How Employers Threaten, Intimidate, and Harass Workers to Stop Them from Exercising Their Right to Collective Bargaining”. Economic Policy Institute, 2020.
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Loustaunau, L., M. Henifin, L. Petrucci, E. Scott, and L. Stepick. “No Choice But to Be Essential: Expanding Dimensions of Precarity During COVID-19”. Sociological Perspectives, Vol. 64, no. 5, 2021, pp. 857-75.
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Petrucci, L., L. Loustaunau, E. Scott, and L. Stepick. “Persistent Unpredictability: Analyzing Experiences With the First Statewide Scheduling Legislation in Oregon”. International Labour Review, 2021.
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Loustaunau, L., J. Bellamy Foster, M. Betancourt, and B. Clark. Chinese Contract Labor, the Corporeal Rift, and Ecological Imperialism in Peru’s Nineteenth-Century Guano Boom. Vol. 49, no. 3, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2022, pp. 511-35.
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Read moreKneebone, E., L. Loustaunau, and L. Stepick. Overwork Impacts on Low-Wage Workers: Insights from the Food Manufacturing Sector in Oregon and Washington. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, 2023.
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Loustaunau, L. “Fighting the "Immigrant Threat" Narrative”. Monthly Review, Vol. 72, no. 8, 2021.