A Value Theory of Inclusion: Informal Labour, the Homeworker, and the Social Reproduction of Value

Abstract

AbstractCritically engaging with Marxist‐Feminist debates, this article argues that only interpretations of social reproduction as value‐producing capture the features of contemporary informalised labour relations. Building on early social reproduction analyses and informed by debates in political economy of development and feminist geography, the article sketches a “value theory of inclusion” premised on the centrality of all labour to value‐generation; accounting for different forms of exploitation; and stressing the dynamic interpenetration of production and reproduction in processes of labour‐surplus extraction. By re‐centring the geographical focus on the global South, the article illustrates this interpenetration by identifying three reproductive mechanisms of value‐generation, based on: industrial housing arrangements; spatial processes of externalisation of reproductive costs across urban–rural divides; and processes of formal subsumption of labour, analysed with special reference to women homeworkers in India. An inclusive theorisation of value‐generation is crucial for the development of inclusive politics, recognising exploitation in its varied manifestations.