In this article, I use qualitative methods to examine the concept of a regime for migrant care based on Sri Lankan women’s transnational mobility as migrant domestic workers to Saudi Arabia. My work thus contributes to the growing body of literature on migrant care regimes from a Global South perspective, which to date has still received insufficient scholarly attention. The Sri Lanka–Saudi migrant care regime, shaped by a transnational consciousness of the possibilities for accumulation and production through reproductive labour, is located at a convergence of “translocal” gender, care, employment and migration systems. The regime is (re)produced through the relations and tensions between the family, the state and the market in an interchange of the dynamics of capitalist market forces and structural relations on various levels. The colour “brown” has emerged as a new racial classification in the global domestic sector, where power and subjectivity are constantly evolving. I argue that domestic work, which continues to be constructed as “women’s work”, represents an embodiment both of the subordination of women and of their personal autonomy. This, in turn, has broader implications for the meaning of feminine/masculine, motherhood/fatherhood, home and work. KEYWORDS: paid domestic labour; migrant domestic workers; care regime; Saudi Arabia; Sri Lanka
{"title":"A Regime Analysis: Evidence from Sri Lankan Migrant Domestic Workers’ Journeys to Saudi Arabia","authors":"W. S. Handapangoda","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i2.5241","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i2.5241","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I use qualitative methods to examine the concept of a regime for migrant care based on Sri Lankan women’s transnational mobility as migrant domestic workers to Saudi Arabia. My work thus contributes to the growing body of literature on migrant care regimes from a Global South perspective, which to date has still received insufficient scholarly attention. The Sri Lanka–Saudi migrant care regime, shaped by a transnational consciousness of the possibilities for accumulation and production through reproductive labour, is located at a convergence of “translocal” gender, care, employment and migration systems. The regime is (re)produced through the relations and tensions between the family, the state and the market in an interchange of the dynamics of capitalist market forces and structural relations on various levels. The colour “brown” has emerged as a new racial classification in the global domestic sector, where power and subjectivity are constantly evolving. I argue that domestic work, which continues to be constructed as “women’s work”, represents an embodiment both of the subordination of women and of their personal autonomy. This, in turn, has broader implications for the meaning of feminine/masculine, motherhood/fatherhood, home and work.\u0000KEYWORDS: paid domestic labour; migrant domestic workers; care regime; Saudi Arabia; Sri Lanka","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48104090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of: Ruth Dukes and Wolfgang Streeck (2023) Democracy at Work: Contract, Status and Post-Industrial Justice","authors":"M. Marrone","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i2.5481","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i2.5481","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48642865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of: Jan Lust (2019) Capitalism, Class and Revolution in Peru, 1980-2016","authors":"S. Saravia","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i2.5404","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i2.5404","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43482083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When coined about half a century ago, employment in the informal economy was discussed by what it was not: formal. Addressed as a sector of the urban workforce, its definition was a summing up of descriptive traits which made manifest how people in the Global South, deprived of most or all means of production, earned their livelihood by selling their labour power. Investigating their predicament zoomed in on the restructuring of peasant economies and societies to post-peasant ones. The anticipated upward mobility, which was supposed to be boosted by the bargaining power of collective action, did not materialise. Rather than expanding formalisation of labour relations, the reverse took place. The small segment which had been promoted to and protected by regular and regulated employment was subjected to informalisation. In the onslaught of neo-liberal capitalism from the last quarter of the twentieth century onwards, labour flexibilisation and casualisation not only intensified in the Global South but also spread to the Global North. The new policies ended the brokerage which the nation–state once developed to mediate between the interests of capital and labour, leading to a worldwide shrinking of public institutions, space and representation. While the debate with regard to informality has remained firmly focused on labour and employment, I argue that corporate capital in collusion with étatist authority has not only effectuated the deregulation of paid work but also abandoned the legal code of formality ending in a state of lawlessness for the people at the bottom of the pile. In the reconfiguration, both politics and governance are next to big business as stakeholders in a regime of informality erosive of equality, democracy, civil rights, solidarity and shared well-being for humankind at large. KEYWORDS: Capitalism; trade unionism; public sector; welfarism; footloose; self-reliance
{"title":"A Short History of the Informal Economy","authors":"J. Breman","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i1.5277","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i1.5277","url":null,"abstract":"When coined about half a century ago, employment in the informal economy was discussed by what it was not: formal. Addressed as a sector of the urban workforce, its definition was a summing up of descriptive traits which made manifest how people in the Global South, deprived of most or all means of production, earned their livelihood by selling their labour power. Investigating their predicament zoomed in on the restructuring of peasant economies and societies to post-peasant ones. The anticipated upward mobility, which was supposed to be boosted by the bargaining power of collective action, did not materialise. Rather than expanding formalisation of labour relations, the reverse took place. The small segment which had been promoted to and protected by regular and regulated employment was subjected to informalisation. In the onslaught of neo-liberal capitalism from the last quarter of the twentieth century onwards, labour flexibilisation and casualisation not only intensified in the Global South but also spread to the Global North. The new policies ended the brokerage which the nation–state once developed to mediate between the interests of capital and labour, leading to a worldwide shrinking of public institutions, space and representation. While the debate with regard to informality has remained firmly focused on labour and employment, I argue that corporate capital in collusion with étatist authority has not only effectuated the deregulation of paid work but also abandoned the legal code of formality ending in a state of lawlessness for the people at the bottom of the pile. In the reconfiguration, both politics and governance are next to big business as stakeholders in a regime of informality erosive of equality, democracy, civil rights, solidarity and shared well-being for humankind at large.\u0000KEYWORDS: Capitalism; trade unionism; public sector; welfarism; footloose; self-reliance","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48165529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Domestic workers provide a variety of services and contribute significantly to the global economy. However, domestic work has long been undervalued in the labour market. In January 2013, Italy became the first country in Europe, and the first among the countries receiving migrant domestic workers, to ratify International Labour Organization Convention No. 189, the Domestic Workers Convention. In contrast to the unprecedented dedication to domestic workers’ labour rights specified in C189, the majority of domestic workers presently in Italy are migrant women and undeclared workers. This article draws on interviews to show how Italy’s ratification of C189 was accomplished through well-organised tripartism and top-down ratification processes, while perpetuating the undervaluation of the work status of migrant domestic workers. KEYWORDS: Domestic workers; ILO Convention No. 189; Italy; migrant workers; labour protection
{"title":"Is There a Dualistic Protection System for Migrant Domestic Workers? The \"Easy\" and \"Speedy\" Ratification of the ILO Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers in Italy","authors":"Rie Miyazaki","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i1.5035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i1.5035","url":null,"abstract":"Domestic workers provide a variety of services and contribute significantly to the global economy. However, domestic work has long been undervalued in the labour market. In January 2013, Italy became the first country in Europe, and the first among the countries receiving migrant domestic workers, to ratify International Labour Organization Convention No. 189, the Domestic Workers Convention. In contrast to the unprecedented dedication to domestic workers’ labour rights specified in C189, the majority of domestic workers presently in Italy are migrant women and undeclared workers. This article draws on interviews to show how Italy’s ratification of C189 was accomplished through well-organised tripartism and top-down ratification processes, while perpetuating the undervaluation of the work status of migrant domestic workers.\u0000KEYWORDS: Domestic workers; ILO Convention No. 189; Italy; migrant workers; labour protection","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48784830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of: Nithya Natarajan and Laurie Parsons (eds) (2021) Climate Change in the Global Workplace - Labour, Adaptation and Resistance","authors":"Thomas Klikauer","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i1.5255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i1.5255","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41367107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The purpose of this article is to reflect on how we can conceptualise the multiple types of struggles over water. Through a historical materialist engagement with social reproduction theorists, post-colonial interventions and eco-socialism, we argue that capitalist reproduction not only depends on the exploitation of wage labour but also the expropriation of nature and people along different forms of oppression. By focusing on historical processes and the intertwined dynamics necessary for capitalist reproduction, we reveal the internal relations of these struggles to each other and to global capitalism. Moreover, by putting forward a conceptual and methodological guide for how to approach water struggles relationally, we can point to the anti-systemic potential of these struggles. We argue that the diversity of protesters apparent in struggles against water grabbing captures internally related and mediated forms of class struggle, where the terrain of class struggle is inclusive of the whole social factory. KEYWORDS: Class struggle; exploitation; expropriation; primitive accumulation; water grabbing; incorporated comparison
{"title":"Water Grabbing, Capitalist Accumulation and Resistance: Conceptualising the Multiple Dimensions of Class Struggle","authors":"A. Bieler, Madelaine Moore","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i1.5074","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i1.5074","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this article is to reflect on how we can conceptualise the multiple types of struggles over water. Through a historical materialist engagement with social reproduction theorists, post-colonial interventions and eco-socialism, we argue that capitalist reproduction not only depends on the exploitation of wage labour but also the expropriation of nature and people along different forms of oppression. By focusing on historical processes and the intertwined dynamics necessary for capitalist reproduction, we reveal the internal relations of these struggles to each other and to global capitalism. Moreover, by putting forward a conceptual and methodological guide for how to approach water struggles relationally, we can point to the anti-systemic potential of these struggles. We argue that the diversity of protesters apparent in struggles against water grabbing captures internally related and mediated forms of class struggle, where the terrain of class struggle is inclusive of the whole social factory.\u0000KEYWORDS: Class struggle; exploitation; expropriation; primitive accumulation; water grabbing; incorporated comparison","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45434792","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lula's Third Term: National Reconstruction in Difficult times","authors":"Jörg Nowak","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i1.5428","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i1.5428","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47787699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While the tech giants are using privatisation to present themselves as providers of solutions to global problems, digitalisation is creating new forms of transnational activism. Global unions are emerging as players in this contest, helping to build counter power at both the local and global level. Through a comparison of the use of digital technology in two case studies in Africa involving two different global unions the article demonstrates how global unions can, through their intermediary coordinating role at the supranational level, deepen worker power. KEYWORDS: Global unions; digital technology; informal work; power resources; union revitalisation
{"title":"Contesting Digital Technology through New Forms of Transnational Activism","authors":"E. Webster, Carmen Ludwig","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i1.5022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i1.5022","url":null,"abstract":"While the tech giants are using privatisation to present themselves as providers of solutions to global problems, digitalisation is creating new forms of transnational activism. Global unions are emerging as players in this contest, helping to build counter power at both the local and global level. Through a comparison of the use of digital technology in two case studies in Africa involving two different global unions the article demonstrates how global unions can, through their intermediary coordinating role at the supranational level, deepen worker power.\u0000KEYWORDS: Global unions; digital technology; informal work; power resources; union revitalisation","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44807595","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of: Hein Marais (2022) In the Balance: The Case for a Universal Basic Income","authors":"Larry Liu","doi":"10.15173/glj.v14i1.5335","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v14i1.5335","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44737,"journal":{"name":"Global Labour Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44387423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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