The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor

Description

The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor offers a cross-cultural examination of labor around the world and presents the breadth of a growing and vital subfield of anthropology. As we enter a new crisis-ridden age, some laboring people are protected, while others face impoverishment and death, as they work in unsafe conditions, migrate to gain livelihoods, languish in the unwaged sector, and become targets of law enforcement. The contributions to this volume address questions surrounding the categorization and visibility of work, the relationship of labor to the state, and how divisions of labor map onto racial, gendered, sexual, and national inequalities. In addition to the emotional dimensions and subjectivities of labor, the book also examines how laborers can articulate common experiences and identities, build organizational forms, and claim power together. Bringing together the work of an impressive group of international scholars, this Handbook is essential for anthropologists with an interest in labor and political economy, as well as useful for scholars and students in related fields such as sociology and geography. Cover Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgments Contributor Biographies Introduction: Wages and Wagelessness: Labor in the 21st Century Sharryn Kasmir and Lesley Gill Decentering the Wage A Web of Connection Particularity and Generality Divisions of Labor Organizing, Mobilizing, and Resisting Workplaces, Non-Places, and Labor Regimes Migrant Labor Affect, Values, and Subjectivity of Labor Future Research in the Anthropology of Labor Part I Divisions of Labor 1 To Have a Life: Labor Reproduction, Value, and Negative Value Introduction Life and the Value of Working People Reproduction Troubles Human Worth and Capital Accumulation Conclusion: Living Value, Negative Value Acknowledgments Notes References 2 The Many Workers of Capitalism Labor History and Historiography Decentering Industrial Workers: Capitalism and Colonies Capitalism and Slavery Capitalism and Race Capitalism and Society Post-war Intersections: Peasant Studies, Social Reproduction Theory, Dependency Rural Values and Industrial Workers Peasant Studies Dependency, World Systems, and Articulation of Modes of Production Reproductive Labor From the Home to the Third World The Neoliberal Turn Neoliberalism and More-Than-Human Nature Subsistence Labor and Freedom Dreams Subsistence Challenges to Neoliberalism as Working-Class Struggles Note References 3 Labour, Property and Persons: Reflections From Papua New Guinea Introduction The Fractal Subject The Commodification of Labour Beyond Cultural Misunderstanding Conclusion Note References 4 Labor and Merchant Capitalism in Myanmar and Thailand Introduction Theorizing Peasant Labor in Capitalist Production The Emergence of Putting-Out Work Along the Thai–Myanmar Border Scavenging for Worms On Yangon’s Urban Periphery Conclusion References 5 Between the Labor Theory of Value and the Value Theory of Labor: A Program Note Introduction Values in the Plural The Value and Dignity of Living Labor: a Super Short European History and a Theory The Dictates of Abstract Labor Value Regimes and Spatial Fixes Coda Notes References 6 Social Reproduction and the Heterogeneity of the Population as Labour Introduction Issues Raised Through the Lens of Social Reproduction Technologies of Anti-Relationality Surplus and the Proletarian Nation Conclusion Notes References 7 Labor in the Time of COVID-19 (With Apologies to Gabriel García Márquez) Introduction Global Supply Chains Global Labor Chains COVID and the Geography of Work The Political Geography of COVID COVID and the Geography of Worker Self-Reproduction Micro-geographies of the Workplace Concluding Comments Notes References Part II Organizing, Mobilizing, and Resisting 8 Labour Organisation: ‘Traditional’ Trade Unions and Beyond ‘Traditional’ Industrial Trade Unions Union Resurgence? Collective Mobilisation Beyond Or Despite the Union Labour Activism and Community Conclusion Notes References 9 Class Analysis Across the “Capitalist/Communist” Divide: Practicing the Anthropology of Labor in Kerala and Cuba Introduction Contesting the Political Status Quo in Kerala and Cuba Workers’ Attraction to New Political Frames The Class Processes Conditioning Contemporary Politics Conclusion Note References 10 New Forms of Labor and Resistance in the Era of Financialization, Gilets Jaunes in France: Commoning and Austerity Financialization, Austerity and Class Formation Following the Gilets Jaunes Paris Grievances of the Gilets Jaunes The Degradation of Public Services and the Growing Rage Commoning and the Creation of Community as a Source of Resilience Conclusions: Building of a Broader Movement Notes References 11 International Unions as a Sphere of Working-Class (Re)organization: Anthropological Insights Into Latin American … Introduction Signs of the Global: From the Shop Floor to Transnational Solidarity Unions in the Face of the Internationalization of TG: the Making of the Global Workers’ Council The Global Council in the Face of Diversity: the Making of the Global Through the Local Conclusions: Global Labor Spaces and the (Re)organization of the Working Classes Note References 12 Working-Class, Political Organization, and Popular Economy in Argentina Introduction Organizing the Heterogeneous Politicizing Precarity Producing Well-Being Conclusion: Decentering Wage Labor, Recentering the Politics of Labor Notes References 13 Factory Takeovers for Production Under Self-Management: Three Examples From Europe Worker Recuperated Enterprises: Context and Scope Scop Ti: Surviving On the Market Vio.Me.: Organic Solidarity RiMaflow: Workers’ Mutualism and Solidarity Economy Common Characteristics Differences of Circumstance and Context Conclusion Notes References 14 Laboring for Whiteness: The Rise of Trumpism and What That Tells Us About Racial and Gendered Capitalism in the … Middle-class Insurrectionists Conspiracies of Whiteness Conclusion: Racial and Gendered Capitalist Transmutations Acknowledgments Notes References 15 Food, Labor, and Political Struggle Food Workers Organic Conclusion Notes References Part III Workplaces, Non-Places, and Labor Regimes 16 Working the Supply Chain: Towards an Anthropology of Maritime Logistics Disconnected (I): Swimming in a Sea of Suits Disconnected (II): Supply Chains and the Anthropological Imagination Studying Workers Inside the Supply Chain: the Case of Korean Shipbuilding, at Home and Abroad Connecting the Dots: Critical Logistical Studies and the Role Anthropology Could Play Conclusion: On Pandemic Disarray in Shipping Notes References 17 Space–time Compression: The Workplace Regime of Transnational Capitalist Agriculture in Northern Mexico Introduction Growing Export Crops in Baja California Indoor Agriculture: Space Compression and Labor Surveillance Speeding Up Time: From Day Wages to Piece Rate From Harvest to Packing and the Compression of Worktime Re-defining the Length of the Workday: Time and Labor Resistance Conclusion References 18 Tea in Troubled Times: Labour in Indian Postcolonial Plantations Neoliberal Reforms and Changing Labour Regimes in the Plantations Categorical Oppression Corrupt Unions and the Struggles From Below Notes References 19 Two Workplaces and a Revolution: Labor in Brick Kilns and Food Factories in Western Lowland Nepal Introduction: Knowing the Culprit Revolutionary State Capture and the Consequences for Labor Gokul’s Brick Kiln in the Far-Western Tarai The Agrawal Food Processing Company in Banke Conclusion: the Cosmogonic Dimensions of Nepal’s Landscape of Labor Notes References 20 Freedom at Work Inside and Outside the Gig Economy Introduction What’s in a Name? Working a Gig The Puzzle Freedom at Work Conclusion Notes References 21 In the Romanian Bubble of Outsourced Creativity Introduction Creatively Outsourcing Social Contradictions Bubble Consciousness The Politics of Leftovers Conclusion Notes References Part IV Migrant Labor 22 Border Walls and Passages: Effects On Labor Exploitation Introduction History and Geography Border Segmentation and the Placement of Labor Borders and Exploitation of Migrant Labor Borders and Class–race Processes Concluding Thoughts Notes References 23 The Unmaking of Puerto Rican Migrant Farmworkers in the 1970s Agrarian Labor Regimes The Struggle to Organize Workers Growers Fight Back Legacies of Dispossession and the Remaking of Colonial Migrants Notes References 24 Contract Migrant Farmworkers in North America: “Free” to Be “Unfree” Introduction Worker Recruitment The Condition of H-2A Migrant Contract Workers A Few “Bad Apples”? H-2A Herders: a “Special Case” The Search for “Good” Employers and the Dual Frame of Reference Conclusion References 25 Migration, “Affective” Labour and Capitalist Reproduction Social Reproduction, Regimes of Accumulation and Materialist Feminist Anthropology Elena Xiao Li Legacies of Materialist Feminist Anthropology Notes References 26 Going Global: Philippine Migrant Encounters With Mobile Capital Introduction: Spatial Entanglements of Mobile Capital and Workers The Philippine–Canada Migration Corridor Education and the Social Reproduction of Migration Destination Canada Caregivers and Feminized Migration From Caring to Fast Food Canada’s Just-In-Time Immigration Restructuring Tim Hortons: Mobile Capital Mobile Workers Conclusion: Lessons From COVID-19? Notes References 27 Social Justice Writing and Photography: The Reality Check and Beyond Learning How to Organize Learning How to Listen From Organizer to Photographer and Writer Learning From Indigenous and Migrant Workers Shooting in the Field Talking About Being Undocumented Coming to Terms Part V Affect, Values, and Subjectivity of Labor 28 A Strike to Remember: Ethnographic Reflections On the Conditions of Possibility for Labor Resistance in the US Heartland The Practical Business of Livelihood and the Political Business of Resistance The Strike-Breakers A Strike to Remember Notes References 29 ‘We Are Supposed to Be the Middle Class’: Intra-Personal Responsibilities, Hierarchical Development Projects and Union … Introduction Long Dispossession and the Transition From Paternal to Entrepreneurial Development Shimaini Dispossession Universalism and Particularism On the Zambia Copperbelt MDI – a Micro-Response to Mopani Accumulation Mopani Take-Over – International Capital’s Accumulation By Nationalisation Conclusion Notes References 30 Technologies of Transformation Technology Is a Tool That Helps You Do Things Work in Jamshedpur Work Is a Technology of Transformation Politics Is a Technology of Transformation Conclusion References 31 Beyond Birthing: The Labor(s) of Doulas and Black Birth Workers Reproduction and the Burden of Racism The Labor(s) of Social Reproduction and Activism Doula Work Dána: …I Am a Doula Colleague: You Know, in Ancient Greek That Means Female Slave Doula: a Brief Genealogy On Becoming a Doula Beyond Birthing Activism and Political Labor Conclusion: Picking Up Shards Acknowledgments Notes References 32 Class and Labor Organization in Building Ships and Dreams Introduction Class(ic) Practical Reason—theory Making Ends Meet Identities at Work Conclusion References 33 Unruly Workers and Laborless Landscapes: The Role of Marginal Places and Redundant People in Energy Transitions Energy, Labor, and the Geography of the Coming Transition Work and Protest in Nuclear Modernity Rents and Wind in a Laborless Present Conclusions: On Green Transitions, Labor, and the New Peripheries Notes References Index