Labor Army Research Articles

Peripheral resistance: geographies of occupation and policing in Tunisia

ABSTRACT This article sets out to study Tunisian protest movements and state responses by focusing on continuities in protest and policing rather than radical breaks like the 1956 independence, the 2010–2011 revolution, or more recently, Kais Saied’s July 25 self-coup. Through ethnographic fieldwork among activists in Tunis, residents of its popular neighbourhoods and with the El-Kamour movement of the southern region of Tataouine, the article develops three arguments and theoretical tools: firstly, it argues that residents of Tunis’ popular neighbourhoods and Tunisia’s inland and southern regions are racialized through consistent securitisation at the hands of urban elites as they migrated to the cities to establish what would become peripheral popular neighbourhoods. Secondly, it develops and applies a lens of internal occupation to analyze policing of these racialized populations. Through a grounded theory-approach, it articulates intimately felt indignity and humiliation in the context of an outsider-insider policing dynamic. Thirdly, it argues that racialisation is perpetuated by a state-capitalist class nexus consisting of economic benefactors of the reserve army of labour and natural resource extraction. Security forces violently enforce this socio-economic order. Lastly, it suggests that internal occupation is a useful theoretical lens through which to analyze policing of marginalised populations in general.

The permanent global crisis of working-class social reproduction: ten propositions

The maintenance and reproduction of the working class remains a necessary condition for the reproduction of capital. But the capitalist may safely leave this to the labourer’s drives for self-preservation and propagation. (Marx [1867] 1976: 718) The capitalist mode of production gives rise to a crisis of working-class social reproduction from the outset, and continually exacerbates that crisis in the course of its development. Far from being in principle a crisis for the capitalist mode of production itself, then, crises of working-class social reproduction are the empirical effects of changes in the capitalist economy, reflecting capitalist power over the fate of the propertyless population. The inherent characteristics of the capitalist mode of production – competition between individual capitals, uninterrupted scientific and technological revolution, an ever-increasing division of labour on local to global scales, the constant process of ‘creative destruction’ as obsolete capitalist enterprises die and new ones are born, the universalisation of commodity production, concomitant to proletarianisation and the creation of a permanent ‘reserve army of labour’, and the tendency for capital to invade and take over any form of production more ‘primitive’ than itself – all continually disrupt areas of social and economic activity within capitalist social formations and those which capitalism has not fully penetrated yet. The effect of state government policies and governance on the part of international organisations is to induce or exploit crises of working-class social reproduction in order to further the hegemony of capital over their own territory and the world market as a whole.

Migration, Informality, and Unequal Exchange in the Context of the Mexico–US Regional Integration Process

This paper analyzes the complex relationship between migration and informality in the context of the Mexico–US asymmetric and subordinated regional integration process under neoliberalism. It argues that one of the main drivers of contemporary Mexican migration is the uneven distribution of the informal sector—and more precisely, the industrial reserve army of labor—among both countries. In this regard, Mexico operates as a strategic zone of reserve and social reproduction of workforce to satisfy the growing labor demand in the United States through migration. This reveals that the reproduction of the reserve labor army is essentially transnational in nature. The main link between migration and informality from below is through remittances: they serve as a fundamental component for family reproduction and for the procreation of a transnational core labor force that exerts pressure on wages on both sides of the border. Within the framework of the dynamics of informality from above, a growing flow of skilled and highly skilled Mexican migration to the United States has been unleashed, accompanied by aggressive government policies to attract talent in synchronization with the strengthening of innovation and knowledge-intensive activities in that country. We conclude that a critical aspect of informality from above, which reinforces informality from below, is the dismantling and disarticulation of Mexico’s productive apparatus in order to rearticulate it to the United States economy through the installation of export-oriented platforms that operate under an enclave logic, with imported components and under tax exemption regimes.

Protecting and promoting the rights of the 'reserve army of labour': a policy analysis of structural determinants of migrant worker health in Pakistan and Qatar.

Labour migrants who travel overseas for employment can face deep health inequities driven in large part by upstream social and structural determinants of health. We sought to study the 'labour migrant health ecosystem' between one sending country (Pakistan) and one host country (Qatar), with a focus on how the ecosystem realizes the rights of labour migrants when addressing the social and structural determinants (e.g. housing, employment law, etc.) of health. Study objectives were to (1) undertake an in-depth review of policies addressing the structural and social determinants of the health of labour migrants in both Pakistan and Qatar, analysing the extent to which these policies align with global guidance, are equity-focused and have clear accountability mechanisms in place, and (2) explore national stakeholder perspectives on priority setting for labour migrant health. We used a mixed methods approach, combining policy content analysis and interviews with stakeholders in both countries. We found a wide range of guidance from the multilateral system on addressing structural determinants of the health of labour migrants. However, policy responses in Pakistan and Qatar contained a limited number of these recommended interventions and had low implementation potential and minimal reference to gender, equity and rights. Key national stakeholders had few political incentives to act and lacked inter-country coordination mechanisms required for an effective and cohesive response to labour migrant health issues. Effectively addressing such determinants to achieve health equity for labour migrants will depend on a shift in governments' attitudes towards migrants-from a reserve army of transient, replaceable economic resources to rights-holding members of society deserving of equality, dignity and respect.

Dock Labour and a Connected History of Workers in Early Twentieth Century Calcutta


 
 
 This article argues that class formation and labour radicalism in the industrial cities of colonial India need to be located in connected histories of workers, which go beyond analysis of single industries. It shows that the horizontal mobility of workers in early twentieth-century Calcutta was a result of a pervasiveness of casual work, both among the ‘unskilled’ and the skilled. Skill levels and occupations were crucial in defining the boundaries of not one, as is frequently posited, but several labour pools. It was in this form that the reserve army of labour was ever-present in the city, which gave workers networks beyond one workplace, one neighborhood and frequently, even one industry. The special role of segments of skilled workers has rarely been studied in relation to labour militancy and politics. The article sustains an emphasis on the role of industrial centres, such as the docklands, through which a high degree of interconnectedness across industrial processes in terms of shared occupations and skills across several industries and neighborhoods, can be excavated and mapped onto episodes of labour militancy. The neighbourhood, the trade unions, and nationalist events have all hitherto been studied to understand the shaping of workers’ protest. This article, by contrast, focuses on other crucial elements: the workplace and the industrial processes, which tied workers together in concrete, everyday, and proximate relationships.
 
 

Deported peoples of East Kazakhstan under the conditions of the special settlement regime

Studying the issues of forced resettlement of peoples in the USSR in the 1940s, using the example of the German and Chechen populations, their habitation in special settlement areas in the territory of Eastern Kazakhstan, and the legal status of the deported peoples, represents a pertinent historical task. The aim of the article is to elucidate the process of deportation and the living conditions of the deported ethnic groups during the wartime and post-war periods in the eastern region of Kazakhstan. Special attention is given to the analysis of the resettlement and living conditions of the special settlers, as well as the issue of their material provision. The formation of a so-called "labor army" from the special settlers is examined, where they were treated as prisoners and utilized by the state during wartime as a mobile and inexpensive workforce. The implementation of human rights and freedoms within the context of the special settlement population is analyzed. The authors have examined documents from the Documentation Center of the modern history of the Abai region and the State Archive of the East Kazakhstan Region, which has allowed for the expansion of the research aspects related to the lives of the deported population within the special settlement system.

МАРГИНАЛИИ СЫНА В РУКОПИСИ ОТЦА КАК МАРКЕР ИДЕНТИЧНОСТИ

The research question relates to the peculiarities of the implementation of the intergenerational dialogue about the family history: the author analyzes the marginalia of the late migrant V.K. Vins (b. 1942) as a response to the manuscript of his father, repressed Soviet German Labor Army soldier K.A. Vins (1905–1988). The manuscript is a summary of the history of a Soviet German family through the life of its breadwinner. The author of the memoirs presents himself as a German, a teacher of the German language, a father of a family and a Soviet citizen; and our research task is to identify the reaction of his son to this text through his marginals. It is revealed that there is a continuous dialogue between father and son, marks in the text perform different functions – from drawing the reader’s attention to lapidary fragments to enhancing the rhetoric of the father’s statements. Marginalia become a marker of V.K. Vince’s identity – in some episodes this identity corresponds to the author’s, in others it contradicts it. To expand the context of the study, the work draws on the son’s ego-documents, in which he sets out his own vision of the family history.

МОБИЛИЗАЦИЯ ЛЮДСКИХ И МАТЕРИАЛЬНЫХ РЕСУРСОВ КАЗАХСТАНА НА ОБОРОНУ СССР

The article deals with the issues of mobilization of human and material resources of Kazakhstan in wartime conditions. According to the revealed data, during the war years of 1941-1945, 24% of the population of the republic was mobilized for the defense of the USSR and the Labor Army. As the analysis of documents shows, the restructuring of the national economy forwar conditionswas carried out from July 1941 to July 1942. During this time, more than 1600 evacuated enterprises were located in the republic, 142 of them began to produce military products. The work of all people's commissariats, as well as the transport system, was rebuilt. Light industry provided the army with uniforms and warm clothing. 12 new mines were built and the subsoil of the Zhezkazgan region was developed. Kazakhstan during the war years gave the country more than 70% of polymetallic ores, 90% of lead and other strategic products.The article also discusses the mobilization of agricultural resources. In 1941-1942 the area under crops in the republic was expanded. In addition, the article shows the activities of public bodies to provide voluntary assistance to the front, to raise funds for the construction of tank columns, air squadrons and other equipment. In the course of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that during the war years all the resources of Kazakhstan were mobilized for the defense of the USSR. Out of 1 million 367 thousand, every second Kazakhstani who fought on the fronts of the war remained on the battlefields. 700 thousand Kazakhstanis worked in the labor army (200 thousand of them were Kazakhs). Most of them worked outside the republic.

American Monument: Racism and Class

When we say that racism is systemic, where in the system can we see it? When we use the term ‘structural racism’, how can we identify the particular properties, internal organisation, and types of connections that determine a white supremacist structure? Structure, as used in this article, is an outcome of function. The function of racism is domination, its purpose exploitation – the appropriation of labour, as it is shaped by the type of social relations specific to each historical period. As an ideology, racism has been used to rationalise plantation slavery, maintain segregation after emancipation, and divide and conquer workers for industrial exploitation. With the globalisation of production and its movement to the (so-called) global south, racism has been politically instrumentalised, under the guise of slogans such as ‘tough on crime’ or ‘war on drugs’ that are often wielded in contradiction to actual statistics, to justify incarceration and state-sanctioned killing of the army of labour that was left behind at the metropole. Racism is one of capitalism’s survival strategies.1 Pertinent to us is the question of how a civil society and its ‘civilised’ institutions (for example universities and museums) sustain and maintain structures that determine the actions of individuals who do not intend to be racist, but nevertheless are. This article takes two iterations of the work American Monument, as it reveals some principles in the interaction of individuals with structure and system.

Reserve army of Ho Chi Minh City: migrant workers in the Ho Chi Minh City's industrial parks and processing export zones under the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT COVID-19 appeared in Vietnam in January 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) officially announced the Covid-19 pandemic caused by the new strain of Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) around the globe on 1-3-2020. From 1-4-2020, Vietnam introduced social distancing to prevent the spread of the disease in society, affecting every social class, including ‘internal' migrant workers who were often formerly farmers. This paper reports on research evaluating the impact of the pandemic on the internal migrant ‘reserve army of labour' now working in industrial parks (IPs) and export processing zones (EPZs) in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Internal migrant workers make up the majority of employees, at 70% to 85.5% and this article offers a chance to evaluate Marxist categories of work, along with the point of view of the systems and social network approaches, to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts production activities at IPs & EPZs. The paper asks how management of workplaces in the face of the pandemic imposed coping strategies affecting levels of employment and lives of migrant workers at EPZs and IPs. Looking especially at migrant workers' strategies in facing the challenges of the pandemic, the use of Marx’s “floating, latent and stagnant” categories of the “reserve army of labour” is reconsidered on the basis of information from available statistical data and from detailed interviews and observations in the Project “Improving the effectiveness of dialogue and collective bargaining in private enterprise and foreign directed investment enterprises in HCMC” under a grant from the Ho Chi Minh City Science and Technology Development Fund, 2020-22 - HCMFOSTED.

The Continuing Value of Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital

Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974) was widely acknowledged to be a significant intervention in the debate on the political economy of work within contemporary capitalist societies. Despite the radicalism of some initial contributors, over time a new orthodoxy hostile to the Marxist foundation of Braverman’s work was established so that today his influence has waned. His legacy is largely restricted to a simplified and linear theory of the labour process, with the focus that work under capitalism is subject to a dynamic of deskilling. The richness of Braverman’s contribution and observations on issues of political economy, such as the separation of ownership and control, class relations, and the reserve army of labour, subjects of initial discussion and criticism, are ignored. The paper summarizes the major themes in Braverman’s work, and challenges many of the criticisms made since its publication. It also discusses some limitations, including those deriving from Braverman’s complex relation to Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy’s political economy, confusion regarding the position of the ‘middle layers’ within employment, and the absence of a sufficiently nuanced account of labour markets. Finally, it addresses some of the changes to capitalism since Braverman’s day, arguing that contemporary labour processes can be best explored through an engagement with his pioneering work.

МОБИЛИЗАЦИЯ ЛЮДСКИХ И МАТЕРИАЛЬНЫХ РЕСУРСОВ КАЗАХСТАНА НА ОБОРОНУ СССР

The article deals with the issues of mobilization of human and material resources of Kazakhstan in wartime conditions. According to the revealed data, during the war years of 1941-1945, 24% of the population of the republic was mobilized for the defense of the USSR and the Labor Army. As the analysis of documents shows, the restructuring of the national economy for war conditions was carried out from July 1941 to July 1942. During this time, more than 1600 evacuated enterprises were located in the republic, 142 of them began to produce military products. The work of all people's commissariats, as well as the transport system, was rebuilt. Light industry provided the army with uniforms and warm clothing. 12 new mines were built and the subsoil of the Zhezkazgan region was developed. Kazakhstan during the war years gave the country more than 70% of polymetallic ores, 90% of lead and other strategic products. The article also discusses the mobilization of agricultural resources. In 1941-1942 the area under crops in the republic was expanded. In addition, the article shows the activities of public bodies to provide voluntary assistance to the front, to raise funds for the construction of tank columns, air squadrons and other equipment. In the course of the study, the authors came to the conclusion that during the war years all the resources of Kazakhstan were mobilized for the defense of the USSR. Out of 1 million 367 thousand, every second Kazakhstani who fought on the fronts of the war remained on the battlefields. 700 thousand Kazakhstanis worked in the labor army (200 thousand of them were Kazakhs). Most of them worked outside the republic.

Marx and Me

This is the story of how I encountered Marxism and how I have used it to make sense of the world, and hence to inform my political activism. I describe how humanist materialism has helped me interrogate social structures so as to discover underlying interacting forces and the role played by human praxis and understandings. On the way, I examine debates about the researcher as outsider; criticisms of political multiculturalism; difficulties of being a Marxist after the cultural turn when many academics will no longer even engage with Marxist arguments; problems in writing about and working with Islamists; struggles to excavate housing studies from being buried in policy detail; uncomfortable truths about immigration and the reserve army of labour; and warnings from the failure of revolutionary stages theory. I end with lessons from the Kurdish freedom movement on human relationships and bottom-up democracy, and with its inspirational example of a society attempting to live as if in the early days of a better world.

Anxiety, Ambivalence, and the Violence of Expectations: Migrant Reception and Resettlement in Sicily

ABSTRACT Throughout Europe, the arrival of irregular migrants in recent years has triggered the expression of nativist anxieties, witnessing a broad recourse to violent rhetoric and the embrace of exclusivist models of national and regional community. With an ethnographic focus on migrant resettlement in Sicily, this paper argues that the elaboration of a cosmopolitan ethic that rejects the politics of exclusion can be met with ambivalence by local people who share neither the middle-class sensibilities of refugee advocates, nor their access to the public funds by which it is possible to earn income as social service and resettlement workers. Consequently, migrant advocacy is dogged by the widespread presumption that its aims are not necessarily altruistic, and that the apparatus of migrant resettlement is staffed by actors best positioned to take advantage of the lucrative opportunities presented by the migrant crisis. At the same time, newcomers’ incorporation into the body politic as a reserve army of labour, and the expectation imposed upon them to adapt to host communities and contribute productively to the local economy in any way they can, represents a key element of migrant marginalisation that even their own advocates do not explicitly question. Finally, this marginalisation is further exacerbated by contemporary populist rhetoric that positions newcomers as an existential threat to the society.

Inter-regional underemployment and the industrial reserve army: Precarity as a contemporary Greek drama

We explore the 2008/2009 economic crisis in Greece and its impact upon employment precarity. Specifically, we focus upon changing regional patterns of waged part-timerism during three periods: the 2005–2008 pre-crisis period; the 2009–12 deep recession; and the 2013–2016 period of mild stabilization. Our analysis reveals important geographical and sectoral variations in the growth of this type of underemployment. In particular, we find that metropolitan regions have experienced the heaviest losses in full-time waged employment and a significant expansion of underemployment. Moreover, they have struggled to bounce back effectively during the period of stabilization. By way of contrast, island regions orientated towards tourism weathered the crisis to a much better degree, with many avoiding the acute flexibilization felt in more urbanized regions. Our study observes a “downwards convergence” of regional employment figures that is caused by Attica’s disproportionate crisis. This contrasts popular accounts that focus upon productive output. Moreover, by documenting distinct sectoral trajectories, such as the substantial flexibilization of tourism-related activities, we shed light upon the specifics of an industry often praised for its adaptiveness. Ultimately, through exploring the changing spatialities and sectoral specificities of growing flexibility during a period of recession and recovery, our study provides a geographically sensitive perspective on the emerging dynamics of the Greek reserve army of labour. In so doing, we further historical geographical materialist understandings of the capitalist crisis in Southern Europe.

A self- governing reserve army of labour? The commodification of the young unemployed through welfare policy, practice and discourse

A self- governing reserve army of labour? The commodification of the young unemployed through welfare policy, practice and discourse

Inequality, living standards, and growth: two centuries of economic development in Mexico†

AbstractHistorical wage and income data provide both normative measures of living standards, and indicators of patterns of economic development. This study shows that, given limited historical data, median incomes are most appropriate for measuring welfare and inequality, while urban unskilled wages can be used to test dualist models of development. We present new estimates of these series for Mexico from 1800 to 2015 and find that both have historically failed to keep up with aggregate growth: GDP per worker is now over eight times higher than in the nineteenth century, while unskilled urban real wages are only 2.2 times higher, and national median incomes only 2.0 times higher. From the perspective of inequality and social welfare, our findings confirm that there is no automatic positive relationship between economic growth and rising living standards for the majority. From the perspective of development, we argue that these findings are explained by a dual economy model incorporating Lewis's assumption of a reserve army of labour, and we explain why the decline in inequality predicted by Kuznets has not occurred.

Negative Identity of Russian Germans

The article is devoted to one of the aspects of the complex ethnic identity of Russian Germans, namely, its negative inversion. Events of the second half of the 20th century. in the ethnic history of the German community (deportation, labor army, special settlement) became factors in the formation of negative identity. It was expressed in public contempt, insults and humiliation towards the Russian Germans. In this regard, the Germans renounced their ethnicity, changed their personal names and surnames, and rewrote their nationality. The Germans turned out to be the only people who were not fully rehabilitated among those who were subject to repression and deportation, since the territorial autonomy, lost in 1941, was not restored. The negative identity of Russian Germans is a situational phenomenon that is associated with the influence on it, firstly, of historical events, secondly, the political actions of the authorities, and thirdly, public mood and opinion. The article is based on materials from field ethnographic expeditions, archival data and sources of personal origin.

Воспоминания потомков российских немцев о годах войны (по материалам этнографического исследования).

The article is devoted to the recollections of the descendants of Russian Germans about the World WarII. The basis was the interviews received from nine informants, as well as materialsfrom their family archives. The article tells about the fate of German families during the war years. Particular emphasis is placed on deportation on a national basis and the stay in a labor army by representatives of these families. The article introduces new factual material of private origin into science. Interviews and materials of family archives of informants expand the circle of knowledge about events in the mid-twentieth century, including ethnic deportations, and allow clarifying many facts of the “official” history.

Калмыки-военнослужащие Красной армии в Широклаге: статистическое исследование

Introduction. The article deals with Kalmyk soldiers and non-commissioned officers deported to Shirokovsky Forced Labor Camp (Shiroklag) of the Soviet NKVD in 1944–1945. In the aftermath of the unjust abolition of the Kalmyk ASSR and Siberian deportation of its titular ethnos, over two-thirds of surviving Red Army soldiers and sergeants of Kalmyk descent were sent to Shiroklag where they formed two non-Russian construction battalions henceforth referred to as ‘labor army men’. Hard work without any essential mechanic means or labor saving devices, harsh climate, backbreaking output norms, and meagre meals resulted in mass exhaustion of Kalmyk soldiers, high disease and death rates. Goals. The paper presents a statistical analysis on Kalmyk inmates of Shiroklag. Materials. The compiled database utilizes the annotated list of Shiroklag prisoners published under the title ‘Shiroklag. Shirokstroy’ in 2000. The data are analyzed by categories, such as nationality, place (district) of birth, place of conscription (draft board), year of birth, educational level, party membership, diseases that caused death or disability, battle honors, time of arrival in Shiroklag, time and areas of decommissioning (for survivors). Results. The analysis reveals the reference book mentions representatives of other nationalities and contains some mistakes, leaving aside names of some Shiroklag ex-prisoners. However, the annotated list is a bulk of statistical data on the mentioned categories that makes whatsoever analysis possible and helps compile a collective portrait of Shiroklag-based Kalmyks which — being essentially extensive — may be actually instrumental in outlining features of Kalmyk combat veterans during the third stage of the Great Patriotic War.