Edward Elgar Publishing Neoliberal Capitalism and Precarious Work: Ethnographies of Accommodation and Resistance

Product Description With the renaissance of market politics on a global scale, precarious work has become pervasive. This edited collection explores the spread across a number of economic sectors and countries worldwide of work that is invariably insecure, dirty, low-paid, and often temporary and/or part-time. The first part of this cross-disciplinary book analyses the different forms of precarious work that have arisen over the past thirty years in both the Global North and South. These transformations are captured in ethnographically orientated chapters on sweatshops, day labour, homework, Chinese construction workers' unpaid contract work, the introduction of insecure contracting into the Korean automotive industry, and the insecurity of Brazilian sugarcane cutters. The case studies all shed light upon how the nature of work and the workplace are changing under the pressures of neoliberal capitalism and what this means for workers.The editors and contributors then detail some of the ways in which precarious workers are seeking to improve their own situations through their efforts to counter the growth of precarity under neoliberal capitalism, efforts that involve collectively exploring forms of resistance to work restructuring and the failures of traditional trade unions to fully engage with precarious work's growth. Illustrating the impacts of the expansion of precarious work, this book will appeal to students, academics and those generally interested in the issues of the global economy, the reworking of labour markets, the impacts of neoliberal capitalism and ethnographies of the working poor in various parts of the world. Review 'Precarious work is on the rise in the Global South and North alike. This important volume provides interesting examples about the hardship of long working hours, poverty wages and dangerous employment conditions. And yet, workers are not only victims but also agents with possibilities of resistance. The book points to the potential of a cross-border movement of the dispossessed based on a re-imagined role of the labour movement. A must read for everyone interested in resistance to capitalist exploitation.' --- Andreas Bieler, University of Nottingham, UK 'As the world becomes increasingly global, labor's response must be as well. As "standard" employment declines, and workers come to see "flexibility" as a four-letter word, the future of the labor movement hinges on the ability to develop creative responses to precarious labor. Anyone interested in stimulating examples of what is happening to employment and ways to challenge precarious work needs to read Neoliberal Capitalism and Precarious Work.' --- Dan Clawson, University of Massachusetts Amherst, US About the Author Edited by Rob Lambert, The University of Western Australia and Andrew Herod, Distinguished Research Professor of Geography and Adjunct Professor of International Affairs and of Anthropology, University of Georgia, US