Research Profile

Portrait of Noah Mavropoulos

Noah Mavropoulos

Lecturer in Religion and Labour

Short Bio

Noah studies how workplace organization, ritual practice, and economic ethics intersect in contemporary industries. Trained in social anthropology and political theology, he has conducted fieldwork in textile workshops and logistics hubs, examining how wage contracts, scheduling technologies, and devotional life shape mutual obligations. At the Inst. for Comparative Theologies, he develops comparative methods to map moral economies at work.

Research Interests

  • Workplace ritual and devotion
  • Labour movements and religious ethics
  • Moral economies of wage and gift
  • Secularization in industrial settings

Short CV

  • 2014–2016: Research Assistant, Urban Faith and Work Observatory
  • 2017–2021: Doctoral Researcher, Southern Archipelago University of Culture
  • 2021–2023: Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Work, Ethics and Society
  • 2023–present: Lecturer, Inst. for Comparative Theologies

Affiliations

  • Inst. for Comparative Theologies
  • Centre for Work, Ethics and Society

Education

  • BA, Sociology of Religion, Riverport School of Social Thought, 2014
  • MA, Social Anthropology, Northshore Institute of Humanities, 2016
  • PhD, Religion and Labour, Southern Archipelago University of Culture, 2021

Teaching

  • Religion and Work: Rituals of the Workplace
  • Faith, Capital, and Everyday Life
  • Methods in the Ethnography of Labour

Awards

  • Best Dissertation Award, Consortium for Labour and Belief, 2021
  • Early Career Teaching Prize, Council for Social Theology, 2022

Publications

  • Mavropoulos N., Piecework Prayers: Wage, time, and devotion in a coastal garment cluster, Common Life Review, 2022.
  • Mavropoulos N.; Kyriou L., Chaplaincy on the Line: Care infrastructures in logistics depots, Journal of Work and Belief, 2021.
  • Mavropoulos N., Contract and Covenant: The moral grammar of collective bargaining, Proceedings of the Moral Economies Forum, 2023.
  • Mavropoulos N.; Demir A., Scheduling Sacred Time: Algorithms and afternoon prayers in call centers, Ledger of Social Worlds, 2024.

Abstract

Timecards and Sacred Time: a comparative ethnography of shift-work devotions. This project investigates how scheduling systems—from punch clocks to app-based rostering—shape access to sacred time and redistribute obligations among workers, managers, and religious authorities. Combining multi-sited ethnography with analysis of workplace policies and union archives, it traces how prayer breaks, chaplaincy programs, and informal mutual-aid networks are negotiated on the shopfloor. Using process-tracing and event diaries, the study identifies how micro-adjustments (break staggering, rota algorithms) open or close ritual windows that correlate with participation in collective devotion and care practices. The outcome proposes a framework of “contracted sacrality,” clarifying how legal and moral vocabularies circulate between payroll and prayer, and offering tools for institutions to design equitable accommodations without instrumentalizing belief.