Description
Book SynopsisA comparative, ethnographic approach to the question of labour struggles and workers' political agency
Trade Review'Anthropology at its best. Lazar explores how different capitalist strategies for organizing workers’ productivity generate problems that encourage certain solutions that in themselves create more problems, and on and on ... Remarkably imaginative in revealing how, in large and small ways, workers of all stripes can organise to create otherwise, generate new possibilities for resistance and lead more fulfilling lives'
-- lana Gershon, Ruth N. Halls professor of anthropology, Indiana University, US
'As brilliant as it is useful. Lazar manoeuvres lightly among the opposing schools of labor anthropology and shows with world-wide examples that how we struggle for better lives is deeply embedded in the type of relationships in which we labour, care and serve; relationships that are globally produced, intimately lived, and more often than not divisive. A boon for analysts and activists alike'
-- Don Kalb, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, author of Expanding Class
'With its fresh analysis of labour agency, How We Struggle is a source of tremendous inspiration and hope. I can’t wait to share it with my students'
-- Rebecca Prentice, Reader in Anthropology and International Development, University of Sussex
'With ethnographic flair, Lazar beautifully incorporates a wide range of contemporary contributions to the anthropology of labor, from the workplace to the home and the community, from collective action to individualized strategies of resilience and escape ... Provides a highly readable and state of the art analysis of the politics of labor, with a keen eye to gender and migration'
-- Luisa Steur, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam
'Marvellously expansive and generous in its conceptualization. Lazar allows us to think broadly about labor agency in a post-Fordist, post-pandemic world. A masterful book and a resource that makes anthropology matter'
-- Andrea Muehlebach, Professor of Anthropology, University of Bremen, Germany
'In these times, when the power of capital to determine our life conditions seems inexorable, Sian Lazar’s study of working people’s agency and their struggles from below is a very welcome intervention'
-- Sharryn Kasmir, author of 'The myth of Mondragón'
‘Presents a real tour de force and offers magnificent insights into the challenges workers face today and the diverse acts of resistance, agency and organising that underpin their aspirations to improve lives. This refreshing and lucidly written book will be an invaluable resource for scholars of the rapidly changing landscapes of labour and capitalism that engulf us’
-- Geert De Neve, Professor of Social Anthropology and South Asian Studies, University of Sussex
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Introduction
1. Heavy Industry and Post-Fordist Precarities
2. Light Industry: Gender, Migration and Strategies of Resilience
3. Agricultural Labour: Exploitation and Collective Action
4. Affective Labour and the Service Sector: Work as Relations
5. Professional and Managerial Work: Producing Selves and Processes
6. Platform Labour: Digital Management and Fragmented Collectivities
7. Patchwork Living
8. Social Reproduction Labour
Conclusion
Coda: The Covid-19 Pandemic and Labour: Continuities and the Potential for Change
Notes
Bibliography
