Migration, precarity, and global governance: challenges and opportunities for labour

For too long the movement of labour and the labour movement have been studied in splendid isolation. This volume addresses their intersection. Karl Polanyi's intuition that history moves through a double movement of disembedding under market rule followed by re-embedding under societal control underlies the overall argument. In different, but complementary, ways the book's fifteen chapters address globalization, international migration, and the precarization of work and citizenship along with diverse social movement responses beyond 'North' and 'South'.

"Migration, Precarity, & Global Governance explores an understudied, but central, area within contemporary studies of globalisation and precarisation. It relates to the interface between migration, global governance and the role of civil society, with particular focus on the dilemmas and options of trade unions, too often left off the agenda. The volume suggests that the trade union movement is undergoing a fundamental debate about revitalisation, which could play an important role in terms of the economic, political and social integration of migrant workers, with implications for the transformation of contemporary societies in general. The volume adopts an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, emphasizing the complexity of historically grounded social relations. It examines international migration as it is impacted by, and impacts on, globalization, social and political struggles, and the recurring crisis of capitalism. The first part of the book presents five complementary perspectives on the political economy of migration, labour, and citizenship. Part Two offers analyses of the relationship between labour unions and migrant workers. Part Three explores the way trade unions, migrant organisations, and other civil society groupings interact with an incipient global governance regime relating to migration. It also examines issues of state and non-state actors' accountability in relation to human rights claims as well as the impact of the norm of corporate social responsibility."--Publisher's website