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Handbook of Research on the Global Political Economy of Work
This 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.
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Critical Acclaim
Contributors
Contents
More Information
This 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.
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.
Critical Acclaim
‘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
– 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
Contributors
Contributors: Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Samuel Andreas Admasie, Cecilia Anigstein, Ursula Apitzsch, Maurizio Atzeni, Dario Azzellini, Elena Baglioni, Claudia Bernardi, Henry Bernstein, Manuela Boatcă, Jörn Boewe, Sebastian Brandl, Liam Campling, Lucía Cavallero, Jenny Chan, Lorenzo Cini, Linda Clarke, Heather Connolly, Niell Mateo Crossa, Niccolo Cuppini, Lucila D’urso, Catherine Delcroix, Raúl Delgado Wise, Fernando Durán-Palma, Verónica Gago, Baruch Gottlieb, Nikolaus Hammer, Kate Hardy, Ana Inés Heras, Andrew Herod, Praveen Jha, Sharryn Kasmir, Bridget Kenny, Maria Kontos, Vincenzo Maccarrone, Clara Marticorena, Edna Martínez, Lucio Miguel Martínez, Monica Massari, Ingo Matuschek, Siobhán McGrath, Alessandra Mezzadri, Satoshi Miyamura, Yoan Molinero-Gerbeau, Phoebe V. Moore, Jörg Nowak, Tomás Palmisano, Marcel Paret, Prabhat Patnaik, Utsa Patnaik, Jonathan Pattenden, Megan Rivers-Moore, Gigi Roggero, Supriya Roy Chowdhury, Minna Ruokonen-Engler, Melahat Sahin-Dikmen, Benjamin Selwyn, Saori Shibata, Julia Soul, Arianna Tassinari, Martina Tazzioli, Jeemol Unni, Miguel Urrutia, Marcel van der Linden, Marcelo Vieta, Juan Wahren, Christa Wichterich, Jamie Woodcock, Paris Yeros
Contents
Contents:
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
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
