The New Helots

Migrants in the International Division of Labour
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-66617-4
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 310 Seiten, Format (B × H): 138 mm x 216 mm

Reihe: Routledge Revivals

Originally published in 1987 and now reissued with a substantial introduction by Robin Cohen, this wide-ranging work of comparative and historical sociology argues that a major engine of capital’s growth lies in its ability to find successive cohorts of quasi-free workers to deploy in the farms, mines and factories of an expanding international division of labour. These workers, like the helots of ancient Greece, are found at the periphery of ‘regional political economies’ or in the form of modern migrants, sucked into the vortex of metropolitan service or manufacturing industry. The regions of Southern Africa; the USA and the circum-Caribbean; European and its colonial and southern hinterlands, are systematically compared – yielding original and, in some cases, uncomfortable analogies between countries previously thought to be wholly different in terms of their political structures and guiding values. The New Helots has been written with both an undergraduate and professional readership in mind. Students of history, sociology and economics as well as those interested in patterns of migration and ethnic relations will find it of interest.

Zielgruppe

Undergraduate Advanced and Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cohen, Robin

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Regionalwissenschaften, Regionalstudien
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Unfree Labourers and Modern Migrants 2. Theories of Migration: The US and its Labour Reservoirs 3. The Reproduction of Labour-Power: Southern Africa 4. The Functions of Migrant Labour: Europe 5. Policing the Frontiers: Regulating the Supplies of Migrant Labour 6. Habituation and Resistance: The Experience of Migrant Workers 7. The ‘New’ International Division of Labour: Plus ça change

Über Autor(innen)

Robin Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford. For the first decade of his academic career, he worked on comparative labour issues. His books included Labour and Politics in Nigeria (1974) and the co-edited collections The development of an African working class (1975), International Labour and the Third World (1987), African Labor History (1978) and the current title, Peasants and Proletarians. He subsequently wrote on the themes of migration, globalization and diasporas. His best-known work is Global diasporas: An introduction (3rd edition, 2022).