Rethinking power, production, and social reproduction: Toward variegated social reproduction

Abstract

This special issue introduces new work, new perspectives, and engages in a dialogue to revisit, extend and go beyond the original central hypothesis of Power, Production and Social Reproduction (2003). That volume and its primary hypothesis focused upon the unfolding contradiction between the global accumulation of capital and the provision of stable and progressive conditions of social reproduction. It hypothesized a growing contradiction between the intensified power of capital and many life-making/sustaining processes, including the condition of bodies and the biosphere. Our original hypothesis conceptualized capital accumulation and social reproduction as interlinked although within different and contradictory moments in the same system or totality. We add to this here the concept of variegated social reproduction which refers to the historical and ontological variability of social reproduction - and its specific differentiations and varieties in contemporary globalized capitalism - stemming from concrete social, cultural, ecological and material practices and structures. Indeed, as the articles in the special issue reflect, the neoliberalization and commodification of social reproduction remains incomplete and not all-encompassing or determinant. As such, the introduction and the special issue also suggest new research agendas.

A Value Theory of Inclusion: Informal Labour, the Homeworker, and the Social Reproduction of Value

“…In these definitions, social reproduction includes the institutions and activities entangled in domestic and care work-the focus of SRT-but also the labour relations and practices central to the reproduction of capitalism overall, as the two are inseparable. Within this more complex schema, solving the problem of the role of social reproduction in processes of value generation is far less simple, and remains an area to be investigated, analytically, empirically and spatially (see also Bakker and Gill 2019). In fact, as argued by Winders and Smith (2018), geography greatly informs distinct "imaginaries" of the relation of production and social reproduction, as the social location of theorising is always imbued with spatial connections.…”

Feminist global political economies of work and social reproduction

“…In its early inception, this debate originally focused on the role of housework, the household and patriarchy in capitalism (Dalla Costa & James, 1972;Mies, 1986;Federici, 2004;Arruzza, 2016). Then, it evolved to also include changes in capitalist governance and broader transformations in the institutions of social reproduction, particularly in the phase of the rise of neoliberalism (Bakker, 2007;Bakker & Gill, 2019;Fraser, 2014). Certainly, it has always also addressed the relation between class and social oppression (Vogel, 1983;Bhattacharya, 2017;Ferguson, 2019).…”

“…Moreover, the issue also contributes to debates on the relations between exploitation and commodification, through its exploration of novel processes of commodification of reproduction and life, shaping new circuits of labour and survival in the context of the rising mercification of the (female) body and its 'fruits'. In this way, the analysis contained in this special issue attends to ways that interrelations between social and biological processes are imbued by the logics of capitalist accumulation that resonate with, and might inform, contemporary debates on social-ecological reproduction and the political economy of commodity frontiers (Bakker & Gill, 2019;Foley, 2019;Barca, 2020).…”

COVID-19 and crises of capitalism: intensifying inequalities and global responses

“…Failure to consider social reproduction, that is the set of material and social practices that ensure the reproduction of life, society and labour (e.g. Bakker and Gill 2019;Katz 2001;Mezzadri 2019), leads to depletion and endangered survival (Bhattacharyya 2018;Rai, Hoskyns, and Thomas 2014). The COVID-19 crisis is fundamentally a crisis of work through both production and reproduction (Mezzadri 2020;Stevano et al forthcoming).…”