Marx, the Chief, the Prisoner and the Refugee

Abstract

The last chapter in this collection preliminarily interrogates the potential relevance of Marxian analysis and methodology for the study of what would appear as 'marginal' categories in the study of political economy; namely, those that are either often (mis)represented as remnants of a pre-capitalist or a non-capitalist past, or inaccurately theorised in residual or exclusionary terms vis-à-vis the main working logics of global capitalism. This chapter gathers the reflections of three scholars of, respectively, Southern African tribal chieftaincy, prison and forced labour, and refugees and border studies, on the possibility to deploy Marxian methods and categories to capture the features of three main figures; the tribal chief, the prisoner, and the refugee. Crucially, in the process of thinking about these figures, which takes the narrative form of a collective interview, we learn both what Marxian political economy can offer as well as what are its main methodological shortcomings. Introduction, by Alessandra MezzadriAs explained in the general Introduction, the contributions included in this volume explore the potential of bringing Marx in the Field through three different lenses. The first lens implies analysing some key categories and tropes in Marxian analysis that are crucial for the study of our Global Present (e.g. Jan, Hanieh). The second lens entails, instead, exploring how Marxian main categories and concepts may appear concretely in the field, in ways that may seem fairly distinct -yet analytically and logically compatible -with those historically sketched by Marx in his work (e.g. Bernstein, Selwyn). Indeed, learning from Jairus Banaji (2010), when researching and 'doing' political economy, we should always distinguish logics from history. Finally, the third lens involves an engagement with actual methods of enquiry -either those deployed by Marx to study, for instance, accumulation and/or exploitation (e.g.