Description
Book SynopsisThis ground-breaking Handbook broadens empirical and theoretical understandings of work, work relations, and workers. It advances a global, intersectional labour studies agenda, laying the foundations for the politically emancipatory project of decolonising the political economy of work.
Moving beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries, this Handbook provides a comprehensive account of the relations between different forms of work, exploitation, class configuration and worker resistance. With insights from global experts across the social sciences, it examines changes in technology, geographies of production, and the dynamics of the global capitalist political economy to map modern configurations of work. Using ongoing empirical qualitative research, contributors explore key issues such as capital accumulation, migration, digital work, trade unionism and reproductive labour. There is a particular focus on perspectives from the Global South, with in-depth analyses of class and work in countries and regional economic blocs used to explore the dynamics between the local and the global.
Providing an authoritative overview of traditional and current debates, this Handbook will be an essential resource for students and researchers of political economy, industrial relations and the sociology of work, critical management studies, social movement studies, and development.
Trade Review‘A book that debates from theory and history, to sociology and politics of labour. Essential!’ -- Raquel Varela, FCSH- Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
‘A much needed and comprehensive restatement of a Marxist critique of political economy. The Handbook skilfully combines labour and class to analyze work, exploitation, social reproduction, workers’ resistance, and many other pressing issues in the contemporary global economy.’ -- Dev Nathan, Institute for Human Development, India and The New School for Social Research, New York, US
‘This is a much needed Handbook that adds value to the growing literature on the global political economy of work. Its strength lies in the collection of works that, using critical perspectives, puts labor at the center of various interdisciplinary analyses. Offering a comprehensive view—theoretically, geographically, and in terms of work sectors—this bookcollection challenges Eurocentrism in labor studies and highlights how the workings of the world economy can have significant negative impacts on the peoples in the Global South.’ -- Intan Suwandi, Illinois State University, US
‘It is rare to find such a stimulating and thorough going collection of intellectually rigorous, empirically grounded and accessible contributions to our understanding of the range and depth of challenges facing us in the political economy of work in the 21st century. This is quite simply an essential set of readings for students, researchers and practitioners alike – an invaluable and exceptional text.’ -- Jean Jenkins, Cardiff University, UK
‘The Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work
offers the most pervasive and up-to-date companion to understanding the contemporary ontology of labour exploitation and emancipatory struggles alongside global value chains and new technological developments. By foregrounding social reproductive work, commodified reproduction and class in interplay with sex, gender, age, race and ethnicity, the Handbook is second to none in taking Marxist theorization to the next level.’ -- Angela Wigger, Radboud University, the Netherlands
Table of ContentsContents: Introduction: what is work and what is the political economy of work 1 Maurizio Atzeni, Dario Azzellini, Alessandra Mezzadri, Ursula Apitzsch, Phoebe Moore PART I THEORIES AND CONCEPTS SECTION A. CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND FORMS OF EXPLOITATION 1 Class, labour and the global working class 34 Ronaldo Munck 2 Imperialism and labour under neo-liberal globalization 43 Prabhat Patnaik and Utsa Patnaik 3 Reserve army, ‘surplus’ population, ‘classes of labour’ 53 Henry Bernstein 4 Social reproduction, labour exploitation and reproductive struggles for a global political economy of work 64 Alessandra Mezzadri 5 Unfree labour in the 21st century? 74 Siobhan McGrath 6 World-system, production, and labour 83 Manuela Boatcă 7 The proletariat and the revolution 93 Marcel van der Linden SECTION B. SHIFTING REGIMES OF EXPLOITATION: FROM THE WORKPLACE TO THE TERRITORY TO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY 8 Analysing the labour process and the global political economy of work 112 Kendra Briken 9 Exploitation and global value chains 125 Benjamin Selwyn, Liam Campling, Alessandra Mezzadri, Elena Baglioni, Satoshi Miyamura and Jonathan Pattenden 10 Rural-urban circuits of labour in the Global South: reflections on accumulation and social reproduction 136 Praveen Jha and Paris Yeros SECTION C. CONTEMPORARY DEBATES 11 Commoning labour power 148 Dario Azzellini 12 Social and solidarity economy and self-management 159 Marcelo Vieta and Ana Inés Heras 13 Operaismo: in search of the political economy of subjectivity 170 Gigi Roggero 14 The global gig economy: towards a planetary labour market? 177 Mark Graham and Mohammad Amir Anwar 15 Workers’organisation, class and collective action in precarious times 196 Maurizio Atzeni 16 Workers and labour movements in the fight against climate change 206 Linda Clarke and Melahat Sahin-Dikmen 17 Sustainable work: national perspectives and the valorisation of work in Europe 217 Dario Azzellini, Sebastian Brandl and Ingo Matuschek SECTION D. INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES 18 Understanding the global political economy of work: insights from labor geography 230 Andrew Herod 19 COVID-19, divisions of labor, and workers’ struggles in the United States: insights from anthropology 239 Sharryn Kasmir 20 Global labour history – its promises and hazards 250 Stefano Bellucci 21 How the field of industrial relations remains relevant for understanding the global political economy of work 264 Heather Connolly PART II INTERSECTIONS SECTION A. INTERSECTIONS OF WORK AND MOBILITY 22 Capture, coexistence and valorization of workers’ mobility across borders 278 Claudia Bernardi 23 Migrations and global capitalist agriculture: peripheral workers’ mobility and exploitation as fundamental pillars of the world-ecology 290 Yoan Molinero-Gerbeau 24 Migrant work exploitation and resistance in the Italian countryside: precarious lives between violence and agency 300 Monica Massari 25 Extractive humanitarianism: unpaid labour and participatory detention in refugees governmentality 310 Martina Tazzioli SECTION B. INTERSECTIONS OF DIGITAL AND ANALOGUE WORK 26 Problems in protections for working data subjects: becoming strangers to ourselves 321 Phoebe V Moore 27 Intensification of labour value extraction under artificial intelligence 339 Baruch Gottlieb 28 Class composition in the digitalised gig economy 350 Jamie Woodcock 29 Resistance and struggle in the gig economy 360 Vincenzo Maccarrone, Lorenzo Cini and Arianna Tassinari 30 De-skilling and diminishing workers’ autonomy in the digital workplace 371 Saori Shibata 31 Economics of the gig economy and legal arbitrage around employment law 380 Jeremias Adams-Prassl SECTION C. INTERSECTIONS OF WORK AND LIFE 32 Surrogacy as commodified transnational care work 392 Ursula Apitzsch 33 Global political economy of care and gender – crisis, extractivism and contestation 401 Christa Wichterich 34 Aging societies and migrant labour force in elderly care: the German case 412 Maria Kontos and Minna K. Ruokonen-Engler 35 Questioning social reproduction theory: North African working-class migrants in France and their families 422 Catherine Delcroix 36 Towards a global political economy of sex/work: evidence of Argentina and Costa RicaHandbook of research on the global political economy of work 433 Kate Hardy and Megan Rivers-Moore SECTION D. INTERSECTIONS OF STRUGGLES 37 Trade unions (ism), social movements and the community: connections and politics 445 Miguel Martínez Lucio 38 Global unions and transnational labor movement 457 Julia Soul and Cecilia Anigstein 39 Evolving forms of organizing workers in the informal economy 470 Jeemol Unni 40 The power and politics of precarious resistance 483 Marcel Paret 41 Spatial dimensions of strikes 493 Jörg Nowak 42 Feminist strike, social reproduction, and debt 501 Verónica Gago and Luci Cavallero 43 The political economy of extractivism and social struggles in Latin America 510 Tomás Palmisano and Juan Wahren SECTION E. INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN WORK IN THE GLOBAL NORTH AND THE SOUTH: EXPLORING THE LINKS IN KEY PRODUCTIVE SECTORS 44 Exhaust and switch: labour and the garment industry in global production networks 521 Nikolaus Hammer 45 Imperialism and labour: palm industry in the territories of Black communities in the border areas of Colombia and Ecuador (Tumaco-San Lorenzo) 534 Edna Yiced Martínez 46 Skilled migration, productive forces and the development question in the era of generalized monopolies 544 Raúl Delgado Wise and Mateo Crossa Niell 47 Major trends in work at sea: outline of a political economy of maritime labour 556 Jörn Boewe 48 Counter-logistics in Po Valley region 567 Niccolò Cuppini PART III PERSPECTIVES ON THE WORKING CLASS FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH: LOCAL REALITIES AND GLOBAL DYNAMICS SECTION A. ASIA 49 The political economy of labor informality in India: trends, theories, and politics 578 Supriya RoyChowdhury 50 Informalization of labor in contemporary China 588 Jenny Chan SECTION B. AFRICA 51 Precariousness and push-back: capital circuits, labour markets and working-class politics in South Africa 600 Bridget Kenny 52 Work and exploitation in Ethiopia and beyond 611 Andreas Admasie SECTION C. SOUTH AMERICA 53 Working class conditions and resistances in context of austerity in Argentina 623 Lucila D’Urso and Clara Marticorena 54 Chile – from Pinochet’s neoliberal counter-revolution to the 2019–20 anti-neoliberal revolt 639 Miguel Urrutia and Fernando Durán-Palma 55 Brazil: inequalities, labour exploitation and new informalization processes 658 Ludmila Costhek Abílio Index
