FRIBIS Team “care” Welcomes New Expert as University of Vienna Launches UBI Lecture Series

Nov 4, 2024 | News, Topical

The University of Vienna is hosting a lecture series in the winter semester 2024/25 on “Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen – Baustein für gesellschaftliche Transformation und Politikgestaltung” (Universal Basic Income – A Tool for Social Transformation and Policy Making). The series, led by Prof. Dr. Barbara Prainsack, is organized in cooperation with the “Netzwerk Grundeinkommen und Sozialer Zusammenhalt – BIEN Austria” (Network for Basic Income and Social Cohesion – BIEN Austria).
 
One of the network’s co-founders, Margit Appel, will now join the FRIBIS team “care” as a member of the transfer team. With Margit Appel, the team gains a distinguished expert on feminist perspectives on basic income. She explains her motivations for joining the Care Team:

I have been engaged with Universal Basic Income from a feminist perspective for a very long time. Within the basic income movement itself, the question of how unpaid work is distributed under current conditions is insufficiently addressed. Similarly, there is a lack of systematic consideration regarding the potential impact of UBI on the distribution of poorly paid and unpaid care work. I co-authored a book on this topic with Barbara Prainsack, published in early 2024. At the 2023 FRIBIS Annual Conference, where I was invited to present theses from the book, I got to know the Care Team. I immediately and gladly accepted the invitation to join because I had found ‘a place’ where the questions that matter to me are being discussed.

When asked about her expectations for team membership, she responds:

Having already participated in several meetings, I no longer need to rely on hopes alone. I have experienced how the team works in a very non-hierarchical, open manner to contribute to the particularities and challenges of care-related issues and to reflect on the impact of UBI in a nuanced way. Every conversation has brought valuable insights so far, and I hope this will continue in the future.

Regarding the UBI lecture series taking place at the University of Vienna in the winter semester 2024/25, Appel explains:

The twelve-part lecture series examines how Universal Basic Income can drive social transformation and shape policy making through various disciplinary lenses. The opening sessions tackled the structural challenges within Austria’s welfare state, explored how AI is reshaping labor markets, and investigated the complex relationships between work, care, and UBI – with the latter featuring insights from FRIBIS Care Team members Ute Fischer and Verena Löffler. The upcoming lectures will delve into several key themes: the synergy between UBI and public infrastructure, labor unions’ perspectives on UBI, and financing models that distinguish emancipatory from neoliberal UBI approaches and their political ramifications (including a presentation by Care Team member Ronald Blaschke). The series will also contrast two real-world initiatives in Lower Austria: a UBI pilot in Heidenreichstein and a job guarantee scheme in Marienthal. To address pressing environmental concerns, a panel discussion featuring activists from Fridays for Future and System Change not Climate Change will explore UBI’s role in the ecological poly-crisis. This will be followed by an analysis of Austria’s climate bonus as a potential stepping stone toward UBI implementation. The series culminates in an international online panel showcasing perspectives from Catalonia, Ireland, and the UBI-European Initiative, concluding with Care Team member Gudrun Kaufmann’s examination of narrative economics.

The lecture series takes place every Wednesday from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM CET in HS III NIG at the University of Vienna. Detailed program information can be found here (in German).