Ben Rogaly reviews a new edited book of essays on temporary work and unfree labour by Judy Fudge and Kendra Strauss (Eds) Temporary work, agencies and unfree labour: insecurity in the new world of work, New York and London: Routledge 2013, pp 217 Hardback: $125.00 978-0-415-53650-9 (http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415536509/).
Temporary Work sheds intense beams of analytical light on the role of agencies, and of temporary work, both in the production of precarious employment and in the continuing, deepening and uneven connections between that precariousness and unfree labour relations. Adopting a multidisciplinary, collaborative approach, Temporary Work combines insights from the fields of law, labour studies, feminist political economy and economic geography. Continue reading Ben’s review here
Mapping The Politics of National Rankings in the Movement Against “Modern Slavery”
“A global politics of rescue”
By Siobhán McGrath and Fabiola Mieres
Screen shot from 2014 Global slavery Index (see http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/)
Africa is bleeding red.
We refer to the first image on the webpage of Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index (GSI) 2014: a map depicting the estimated prevalence of “modern slavery” in 167 countries. “Modern slavery” is understood by Walk Free to include trafficking, forced labour and forced marriage. At a glance, the map shows the Middle East and most of Asia in shades of red and orange, faring hardly better than the African continent. Lighter shades in Latin America seem to indicate progress in comparison. In turn, Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand tend towards pale yellow. Such an image suggests the Global North metaphorically shedding light onto the dark parts of the world where slavery still flourishes. The image troubles us. It is replete with colonial overtones, ones which have been carried into the modern project of development. Thus, rather than providing an exhaustive critique of the methodology behind the GSI, in the rest of this brief commentary, we explore some of the politics of the report and of its methodology. Continue reading their commentary here
Readers might also be interested in Ben Rogaly’s Society and Space review of Judy Fudge and Kendra Strauss (Eds) Temporary work, agencies and unfree labour: insecurity in the new world of work
and Open Democracy’s Beyond Slavery https://www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery