Global Labour Studies ed. by Marcus Taylor and Sébastian Rioux

Abstract

Reviewed by: Global Labour Studies ed. by Marcus Taylor and Sébastian Rioux Christopher Mastrocola Marcus Taylor and Sebastian Rioux, Global Labour Studies Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017 Surprisingly pew introductory texts have been written on global labour studies, despite its notable growth following the 1980's debates over the New International Labour Studies movement. Perhaps this is attributable to the inherent difficulty of introducing such an expansive discipline: not only are the issues examined and perspectives employed wide-ranging, but they are brought to bear on an incredibly complicated and rapidly changing global economy. In Global Labour Studies, authors Marcus Taylor and Sebastian Rioux confront this challenge head-on. The result is a robust introductory work that combines theoretical breadth and empirical rigour, all the while ensuring accessibility for readers new to the field. As Taylor and Rioux correctly note, the field of global labour studies is considerably fragmented, marked by research that is often conducted within narrow disciplinary frameworks that privilege specific issues and topics, often at the expense [End Page 310] of others. In its 13 chapters, spanning 213 pages, perhaps the greatest contribution of this book is the innovative interdisciplinary framework the authors develop to overcome this fragmentation and produce a cohesive and multifaceted approach to the field. It is constructed through the thoughtful integration of four primary perspectives: (1) political economy and the study of power; (2) economic sociology and the question of networks; (3) human geography and the focus on space and scale; and (4) development studies and the livelihoods perspective. Challenging tendencies to reify and idealize existing society, a political-economic perspective foregrounds the ways in which the practices, relations, and institutions of labour are socially constructed on the basis of unequal power relations. This perspective is complemented by that of economic sociology, with its emphasis on the social embed-dedness of the economy; in particular, Taylor and Rioux draw attention to the ways in which society's values and norms influence the normative conceptions of work and work relations held by individuals. They also call attention to the key role that social networks play in in the production and reproduction of labour power and labour regimes as well as in enabling and constraining political praxis. In their discussion of human geography and space, the authors draw on David Harvey's threefold conception of space as absolute (physical and material space), relative (space as transformed through human praxis), and relational (space as informing and conditioning collective ideas, experiences, and practices). This expansive conception of space proves ideal for conceptualizing the multifaceted ways that spatial relations and social relations mutually constitute one another. Furthermore, when synthesized with the other three perspectives, it enables the authors to masterfully navigate the complexities and nuances of issues such as the social reproduction of labour power, labour migration, global production chains, and translocal labour movements, amongst others. These three analytical perspectives tend to focus attention on the larger questions of power and production with a primary focus on macro-level analyses. To round out their analysis, the authors make the astute decision to incorporate a livelihoods perspective drawn from the field of developmental studies. This bottom-up approach focuses on the ways that individuals and households navigate the opportunities and constraints of their specific context. In doing so, they affirm the agency individuals possess when engaging with broader social structures and practices. After establishing their theoretical framework, Taylor and Rioux use the remaining ten chapters to apply it to a range of issues central to global labour studies. Following the order in which they appear in the work, these include: labour regimes, global production networks, formal labour, informal labour, agrarian labour, migrant labour, forced labour, environment and labour, corporate social responsibility, organizing global labour, and a concluding chapter on the future of global labour. The authors use a combination of vignettes, personal anecdotes, and case studies to introduce the topics to the reader in an accessible and provocative way. Their analyses attend to both the historical development of the issues they consider, as well as how they are concretely materialized in different but interrelated geographical areas. At the end of each chapter the authors provide a helpful list...