Reproducing the Global Factory:
A postcolonial enquiry of contemporary reconfigurations of reproductive labour

SUMMARY
This thesis will analyse how neo-liberal globalisation has transformed reproductive labour and how this continues to reconfigure the political economy of the home. By unpacking the extent to which the home is changing as it increasingly becomes a place of low paid work and by exploring new intersections of gender, race and class relations, reproductive labour can be understood as an important site for further postcolonial research. Reproductive labour is more than a mere reflection or expression of social relations; it involves the reproduction of social relations, of relations between genders and of ‘race’. The research will analyse the material conditions and experiences of (unwaged) reproductive workers and (waged) migrant domestic, care and sex workers and make use of an interdisciplinary approach, centred in a postcolonial feminist methodology. The research will further develop and contribute to the analysis developed by contemporary feminist, migrant and labour movements, enhance our knowledge of the new conditions of reproductive labour and help to identify the limits and possibilities that exist for action within a new politics of reproduction.

RESEARCH CONTEXT
This research project is concerned with labour, specifically reproductive labour that remains, despite its centrality to human existence, an under-studied and under-theorised site of work and human activity. One could argue that this is due to precisely who does the work of reproduction (i.e. overwhelmingly women) and where it occurs (in the private / home sphere). To make sense of the changes that are currently occurring to reproductive labour and importantly so as to contribute to improving the conditions of those who perform reproductive labour, what is needed is an analysis that seeks to explore the complex and powerful intersections of gender, race and class that are present in the contemporary conditions of human reproduction.

It is not the intention of this research project to either romanticise the home as a space that is inherently ‘good’ or ‘naturalised’ or to moralise about the commodification of reproductive work. Instead the enquiry begins with the material conditions of reproductive labour and the experiences of those who perform such labour. One aspect of what is interesting about reproductive labour is that someone, in fact somebody, has to do it. While some of this work can be reduced with technology (a washing machine or dishwasher for example) but it cannot be eliminated. A young student may not be interested in or value cooking for himself or cleaning his own house, but in order for him to survive, it needs to get done. Alternatively a new mother might have to work outside the home in order to survive so is unable to look after her baby during the day. If they have access to money, they will be able to get someone else to do this work for them. The fact that there is something fundamentally bodily about much of the work of reproduction means that we cannot escape it and while capital remains the dominant global social relation it will remain an important site of the production of social relations.

In the last forty years major economic and political changes have occurred inside and outside the home that have led some to claim that the developed countries of the global north are now suffering from a ‘care deficit’ (Ehrenreich & Hochschild, 2002: 8). Historically, reproductive labour has been largely unpaid and involved the raising and education of children; care of the elderly and the sick; household cleaning, paying the bills; shopping and preparing food; sex; offering emotional support like listening. It would be an oversimplification to conclude that women’s increasing employment in paid work outside the home has been the only contributing factor to this ‘care deficit’. Other factors such as an ageing population, increased labour mobility and migration, lack of public services and the erosion of the welfare state must also be considered in any analysis of the shift to paid work in the domestic domain (Anderson, 2001).

The phenomenon of globalised reproductive labour has been previously analysed by looking at the development of ‘global care chains’ (Hochschild, 2000: 131) as well as exploring the particular perspective of migrant domestic and care workers (Anderson 2000; Parrenas, 2000 & 2001; Pratt, 1999) and migrant sex workers (Agustin, 2007; Kempadoo & Doezema, 1998). This research project proposes to investigate (waged) domestic, care and sex work and (unwaged) reproductive labour together, to read across these sites of labour, so as to examine not only what is new and old but also what is different and what is similar to the labour processes involved and the subjects who perform the work. The inclusion of sex work within this enquiry of reproductive labour follows from an analysis of sex as gendered labour as developed by various feminist theorists (Zatz, 1997; Kempadoo & Doezema, 1998; Pateman 1988; Fortunati, 1981), while recognising that the work site of sex work is outside of the home.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s the feminist movement in the global north contributed to a sustained theoretical analysis of the ‘private’ with a focus on unwaged, invisible and naturalised reproductive work, in particular housework, childcare and sex. Significant theoretical reflections from Marxist feminists (Dalla Costa & James 1975; James, 1975; Fortunati, 1981) contributed to a redefinition of what normatively and theoretically should be considered productive labour. In redefining unpaid reproductive labour as work, feminist theorists highlighted a crucial and under examined site of (women’s) exploitation (Federici, 2004). Fortunati (1981) argues that reproductive labour, known as ‘women’s work’ reproduces not only the woman performing the labour but also her (waged) male partner and future generations of labour power: her children. While drawing heavily on the work of Marx through Althusser to Dalla Costa, Mitchell et al (2003) point to the limits of abstract theorising and advocate a topographical and embodied view so as to incorporate ‘an understanding of the constitution of subjects through time and in space,’ one that ‘demonstrates how abstract theories often reify problematic categorical distinctions between the spheres of production and reproduction’ (2003: 417).

Since the 1970’s and western feminism’s attendant analysis of the ‘private’ was undertaken, processes of neo-liberal globalisation have led to structural changes and transformations in reproductive labour in both the global south and north. One of the key characteristics of neo-liberal globalisation has been a shift to financial services, which have fundamentally increased and reconfigured the power and influence of global cities (Harvey, 2001). In the global north, major shifts in production away from manufacturing and towards a service-based economy have led to considerable changes in the labour market. In the global south, neo-liberal policies have been implemented through structural adjustment programs and the finance and trade polices of the IMF, World Bank and WTO (De Angelis, 2007). An increase in both ‘illegal’ and ‘legal’ migration has also shaped reproductive labour in both the global north and south (Anderson, 2000). Recent research argues that there has been an emergence of a new migrant division of labour in London that is similar to the income and occupational polarization that has occurred in global cities like New York (May et al, 2007). These changes have laid the basis for the emergence of new compositions of labour, race and gender relations.

A crucial aspect of the postcolonial critique of western feminism has centred on the role of ‘the subaltern female’ within dominant feminist discourse or as Mohanty (1988) demonstrates the problematic construction of the ‘average third world woman’. Any research that seeks to understand the contemporary conditions of reproductive labour needs to engage with the postcolonial critique of western feminism and at the same time it must also critically confront the shift in the material conditions of a significant number of women in the global north, articulated and produced through a gendered and racialised social hierarchy. Or in other words, it needs to unpack the gains ‘we’ (as women from the global north) have made being bound to and contingent upon the conditions and positions that ‘they’ (as women from the global south) experience and occupy. In discussing the cultural, political and academic spotlight which now shines on the black subject, the subaltern female, the migrant, Puwar (2004) writes ‘[t]he white feminist occupies a special place in all of this. The moral high ground over welfare has been a central way-in for her into a public realm of fraternities that have historically sought to limit her participation’.

If as Blunt & Varely (2004: 3) state ‘the home is invested with meanings, emotions, experiences and relationships that lie at the heart of human life’, the contemporary transformations of reproductive labour occurring both inside and outside the home, point to the need for further research which builds upon previous Marxist, post colonial and feminist theoretical contributions and seeks to map the changes that neo-liberal globalisation has had on human reproduction.

RESEARCH AIM & OBJECTIVES
Aim
• To explore the changing conditions and practices of reproductive labour in the home and to understand the effect that such changes have on the production of social relations

Objectives
• To examine how neo-liberalism is reconfiguring reproductive labour through the lens of three key concepts; gender, labour and migration
• To investigate contemporary conditions of reproductive labour in the home through the experiences of migrant domestic, care and sex workers and unwaged reproductive workers
• To explore the inter-gender power relations and racialised hierarchies (re)produced through the commodification of reproduction
• To further develop the analysis of Marxist and postcolonial feminist theorists with a view to identifying the limits and possibilities that exist for the development of action around a new politics of reproduction.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• How is neo-liberal globalisation transforming reproductive labour?
• What impact are these transformations having on the home?
• How are gender, class and race (re)produced through contemporary conditions of reproductive labour?

METHODOLOGY
The research project will make use of an interdisciplinary approach, centred in a postcolonial feminist methodology and will use a combination of ethnographic methods including qualitative research and interviews (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000) and action research (Reason & Bradbury, 2001) in order to explore the ways in which neo-liberal globalisation has reconfigured reproductive labour.

Applying postcolonial feminist theory to not only the issues but also the subjects of reproductive labour serves to open up spaces of investigation and will help unpack the social, cultural, political representations of work and worker and see how embodied identities based on gender, race, nation, and class shape the meaning of reproductive processes.

The project will include in-depth interviews with feminist theorists such as Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Selma James, Leopoldina Fortunati and Siliva Federici to revisit their historical theoretical contributions to debates concerning reproduction and explore their reflections on contemporary conditions. In addition, interviews with a) domestic, care and sex workers b) unwaged reproductive workers c) workers associations and trade unions d) self-organised migrant groups e) consumers of reproductive labour, will be conducted in London to investigate and ground the analysis of the new conditions of reproductive labour.

The research will also employ action research methods and involve the participation of and collaboration with local domestic, care and sex worker groups and associations including the International Union of Sex Workers and Kalayaan.

RESEARCH TIMELINE
Months 01-05: Research design, literature review and preparation for interviews
Months 07-11: Interviews with feminist theorists and developing research contacts
Months 11-18: Qualitative interviews with a) domestic, care and sex workers b) unwaged reproductive workers and c) consumers of reproductive labour and action research with workers associations, trade unions and migrant groups
Months 18-36: Writing up research; academic conferences, papers; submission of PhD

REFERENCES

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