Unfreedom in labour relations: from a politics of rescue to a politics of solidarity?

Abstract

In this introduction to the Special Forum we seek to explore the possibilities for challenging labor unfreedoms through exercising solidarity. We critique the prevailing framings and dominant politics of 'combatting modernday slavery' -or what we refer to here as contemporary abolitionism.We argue that questions of coercion, control, and confinement are nonetheless increasingly pertinent to the analysis of contemporary labor relations and labor regimes. This leads us to reflect on how we might better conceptualise the many forms of unfreedom that are imposed on working people. We then explore the possibilities for a liberatory politics of solidarity that might challenge such unfreedoms. Finally, we summarise how the articles in the Special Forum engage with existing debates, and point us in new and fruitful directions for the task of confrontingintellectually and politically -the ways that contemporary labour relations are variously structured by unfreedoms.* Contemporary abolitionism, which we critique here, should not be confused with 'abolition geography' that continues to inspire us and which has emerged out of decades of critical analysis of racial capitalism alongside grassroots solidarity and resistance (see Gilmore, 2022).

Labour geography I: Labour agency, informal work, global south perspectives and the ontology of futures

“…Binary categorisations like un/employment, in/ formal work, or non/standard forms of employment present categorisation of what is and is not a 'proper job' (Ferguson and Li, 2018: 1) and present an imagery void of labour agency. McGrath et al (2022) points to how all forms of labour, which fall into a continuum between free and unfree labour (which recognises that all forms of labour relations have some degree of unfreedom: see McGrath, forthcoming), must be acknowledged with worker agency (McGrath et al, 2022). Even within some forms of unfree labour, Natarajan et al (2021), for example, show choices were made by individuals and families in Cambodian villages to leave subsistence agriculture and enter debt bonded work in brick kilns as a way to pay off third-party debt.…”