Détails du document

Impression et sauvegarde

Article de journal

Chinese Cockle-Pickers, the Transnational Turn and Everyday Cosmopolitanism: Reflections on the New Global Migrants

Date

2004

Auteurs

Robin Cohen

Résumé

The case of 19 Chinese immigrants illegally recruited to pick cockles from Morecambe Bay in northwest England who became caught in dangerous tides in 2004 is cited to advance the argument that migrant workers of the 21st century remain locked into the same forms of labor exploitation endured by their predecessors during the dawn of global capitalism, despite the promises of an "evangelical form of neoliberal capitalism" that has promised better working conditions & wages. Employer demand for cheap (often illegal) labor remains high & significant gaps remain between the situations of established or privileged foreign workers & common laborers. The relationship between labor (workers), capital (employers), & state functionaries (bureaucrats & politicians) in global labor flows is described & the new transnational dimensions of migration are discussed. A growing sense of "everyday cosmopolitanism" among migrants is noted & its cultural & subjective manifestations are considered. It is suggested that transnationalism & cosmopolitanism are key in workers' adaptation to the modern corporate form of globalization. Implications for relations between international migrants & national workers are considered & differences in the transnationalism/cosmopolitanism of various migrant worker groups are described; 4 case vignettes illustrate these arguments. Tables, References. K. Hyatt Stewart

Journal title

LABOUR Capital and Society/TRAVAIL Capital et Societe

Volume

37

Numéro

1-2

Page numbers

130-149

Éditeur

McGill University, Centre for Developing-Area Studies

Liens

Secteurs économiques

Labourers in fish and seafood processing

Groupes cibles

Chercheurs

Pertinence géographique

Chine et Royaume-Uni

Sphères d’activité

Science politique et Socioligie

Langues

Anglais