Contemporary Labor and Cultural Exchange

Abstract

This introduction to the special issue on “Contemporary Labor and Cultural Exchange” argues for the importance of the category of labor to the study of contemporary transnational literatures and cultures. Responding to dominant discourses on globalization as well as the debate about “world literature” within literary studies, the introduction suggests that increased attention to the routes of labor migration and cultural representations of exploited migrant labor offers a new, productive approach to the study of contemporary literature and culture. In contrast to the celebratory rhetoric of globalization which represents a “flat” and democratically interconnected world, the focus on labor migration brings to light the persistence of uneven development and exploitation, and the frequent isolation of migrant workers, even as the surplus value they generate plays a major role in the global economy. Written at a time when many U.S.‐based universities are adopting the neoliberal practices of global corporations, the attention to labor in literary and cultural studies also places an emphasis on the material conditions of academic production and scholars' embeddedness in economic processes. An approach to transnational literature which follows the cartography of labor migration and uneven development could become a vital alternative to the “world literature” curriculum which tends to disregard economic inequality.