Global Labor Migration: New Directions

Abstract

Global Labor Migration directs attention to one of the world’s most pressing issues, generates scholarly dialogue, and proposes new research agendas and methodologies. The book calls for a world historical perspective recasting the study of labor migration in a longer (temporality) and a wider geographical (spatiality) frame. Such a perspective traces epochal shifts and marks time arrayed over centuries, broadening the analytical lens for viewing global labor mobilities not merely as a recent phenomenon, but also as processes across the longue durée. Despite a proliferation of interest in migration studies, much of the literature and debates are confined to disciplinary silos or focus on a single sector (e.g., care, agriculture, construction). By thinking beyond disciplinary boundaries, with sociologists, legal scholars, and historians as contributors, the chapters simultaneously reflect on the contemporary nature of labor migration as well as its historical roots.