Contesting labour internationalism:the "old" trapped in the "new" in Volkswagen’s South African plant

During the 1970s and 1980s, close linkages were established between unionists in Volkswagen's Uitenhage plant in South Africa and Wolfsburg in Germany. The ensuing relationship resulted in trade union internationalism and solidarity with South African workers in their struggle against apartheid. After the insertion of the South African plant into the global production networks of the company, a range of new pressures and challenges confronted the union in South Africa. This resulted in the mass dismissal in 2000. In an attempt to garner international support and solidarity, the dismissed workers tapped into existing structures with no success, illustrating the reconfiguration of trade union internationalism away from worker interests to those of the unions and company. © 2010 UALE.

Global HR roles and factors influencing their development:evidence from emerging Indian IT services multinationals

The rapid growth of emerging markets’ multinational companies (MNCs) is a recent phenomenon and, as such, their nature and structure of key management processes, functions, and roles need further examination. While an abundance of low-cost labor is often the starting point of competitive advantage for many of the emerging markets’ MNCs, it is the optimum configuration of people, processes, and technology that defines how they leverage their intangible resources. Based on case studies of four Indian IT services MNCs, involving 51 in-depth interviews of business and human resource (HR) leaders at the corporate and subsidiary levels, we identify five key HR roles—namely, strategic business partner, guardian of culture, builder of global workforce and capabilities, champion of processes, and facilitator of employee development. The analysis also highlights that the HR function in Indian IT service MNCs faces several challenges in consolidating the early gains of internationalization, such as lack of decentralized decision making, developing a global mind-set, localization of the workforce, and developing a global leadership pipeline. Based on our exploratory findings, we propose a framework outlining the global HR roles pursued by emerging IT services MNCs, the factors influencing them, and the challenges facing their HR function for future research.

Tennessee trabajadores: Global wage arbitrage comes home to roost

In the 1980s, the American meat industry began restructuring both its domestic production methods and the distribution of its processing facilities. Many meat and poultry processing facilities have since been relocated into small rural communities. The red meat industry was once highly-paid and unionized, but now work in both meat and poultry processing is a dangerous, low-paid manufacturing job, heavily reliant on immigrant workers who must turn to local social services to supplement their wages and benefits. In an attempt to discover the manner in which the social relations of a specific locale may be enmeshed with global production, this research explored perceptions of social power and alliances after a rural community became host to a foreign workforce employed by the local poultry processing plant. On-site semi-structured interviews were conducted with sixteen local residents, and a content analysis of the community newspaper was undertaken. ^ The research found that as new production relations were inserted into the community, the society continued to reproduce and social relations remained relatively unchanged. The community's cultural standards and social infrastructure dictate that residents are respectful of authority, extend Christian charity to those less fortunate, and are generally accepting of a community known for low wages, low taxation, and low standards of education. Hegemonic ideologies seem to dictate the goals and beneficiaries of social power, and residents are unable to name any power vectors even in the face of sustained community support of, for example, the company that introduced the immigrant labor into the community. While there are indications of displeasure with the influx of immigrants appearing in the newspaper and the interviews, there are tangible examples that the community was proactive in welcoming the immigrants into their community. Thus, given that the last time elements of the community united around an issue was in the mid-1970s and no other issue has evoked any type of tangible struggle since then, there is no indication that any social alliances will be formed in reaction to changes in the community wrought by the globalization of its economy. ^

"New" Social Movements: Alternative Modernities, (Trans)local Nationalisms, and Solidarity Economies

My dissertation is the first project on the Haitian Platform for Advocacy for an Alternative Development- PAPDA, a nation-building coalition founded by activists from varying sectors to coordinate one comprehensive nationalist movement against what they are calling an Occupation. My work not only provides information on this under-theorized popular movement but also situates it within the broader literature on the postcolonial nation-state as well as Latin American and Caribbean social movements. The dissertation analyzes the contentious relationship between local and global discourses and practices of citizenship. Furthermore, the research draws on transnational feminist theory to underline the scattered hegemonies that intersect to produce varied spaces and practices of sovereignty within the Haitian postcolonial nation-state. The dissertation highlights how race and class, gender and sexuality, education and language, and religion have been imagined and co-constituted by Haitian social movements in constructing ‘new’ collective identities that collapse the private and the public, the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern. My project complements the scholarship on social movements and the postcolonial nation-state and pushes it forward by emphasizing its spatial dimensions. Moreover, the dissertation de-centers the state to underline the movement of capital, goods, resources, and populations that shape the postcolonial experience. I re-define the postcolonial nation-state as a network of local, regional, international, and transnational arrangements between different political agents, including social movement actors. To conduct this interdisciplinary research project, I employed ethnographic methods, discourse and textual analysis, as well as basic mapping and statistical descriptions in order to present a historically-rooted interpretation of individual and organizational negotiations for community-based autonomy and regional development.

The transition movement and food sovereignty: from local resilience to global engagement in food system transformation

The emergence of grassroots social movements variously preoccupied with a range of external threats, such as diminishing supplies of fossil energy or climate change, has led to increased interest in the production of local food. Drawing upon the notion of cognitive praxis, this article utilises transition as a trajectory guided by an overarching cosmology that brings together a broad social movement seeking a more resilient future. This ‘grand narrative’ is reinforced by ‘transition movement intellectuals’ who serve to shape an agenda of local preparedness in the face of uncertainty, rather than structural analysis of the global system. In this context, growing and producing food offers important multi-functional synergies by reconnecting people to place and its ecological endowments and serves to provide a vital element in civic mobilisation. Yet, local food could also become a means to build international solidarity in defence of food sovereignty and establish a global coalition opposed to the corporate agri-food agenda of biotechnologies, land grabbing and nutritional impoverishment.

Rethinking Care Through Social Reproduction: Articulating Circuits of Migration

Care has come to dominate much feminist research on globalized migrations and the transfer of labor from the South to the North, while the older concept of reproduction had been pushed into the background but is now becoming the subject of debates on the commodification of care in the household and changes in welfare state policies. This article argues that we could achieve a better understanding of the different modalities and trajectories of care in the reproduction of individuals, families, and communities, both of migrant and nonmigrant populations by articulating the diverse circuits of migration, in particular that of labor and the family. In doing this, I go back to the earlier North American writing on racialized minorities and migrants and stratified social reproduction. I also explore insights from current Asian studies of gendered circuits of migration connecting labor and marriage migrations as well as the notion of global householding that highlights the gender politics of social reproduction operating within and beyond households in institutional and welfare architectures. In contrast to Asia, there has relatively been little exploration in European studies of the articulation of labor and family migrations through the lens of social reproduction. However, connecting the different types of migration enables us to achieve a more complex understanding of care trajectories and their contribution to social reproduction.

Gendered Responses to Global Crisis: Circular Migration and Return among Ecuadorian Families in Spain and Ecuador

This paper analyzes the impact of Spain’s economic crisis on social reproduction strategies of Ecuadorian migrant families in Madrid and Quito. The paper analyzes circular migration experiences and more permanent returns to Ecuador. I argue that these strategies and migrants' greater or lesser capabilities to move between different migration destinations show significant gender differences. On the one hand, men and women make a differential use of their migratory status to deploy transnational strategies and expand their mobility. On the other hand, migrants’ degree of mobility and flexibility with regard to the labor market and transnational social reproduction are derivative of a specific gendered order and sexual division of labor.

Of Marx and Makers: an Historical Perspective on Generative Justice

In Marxist frameworks “distributive justice” depends on extracting value through a centralized state. Many new social movements—peer to peer economy, maker activism, community agriculture, queer ecology, etc.—take the opposite approach, keeping value in its unalienated form and allowing it to freely circulate from the bottom up. Unlike Marxism, there is no general theory for bottom-up, unalienated value circulation. This paper examines the concept of “generative justice” through an historical contrast between Marx’s writings and the indigenous cultures that he drew upon. Marx erroneously concluded that while indigenous cultures had unalienated forms of production, only centralized value extraction could allow the productivity needed for a high quality of life. To the contrary, indigenous cultures now provide a robust model for the “gift economy” that underpins open source technological production, agroecology, and restorative approaches to civil rights. Expanding Marx’s concept of unalienated labor value to include unalienated ecological (nonhuman) value, as well as the domain of freedom in speech, sexual orientation, spirituality and other forms of “expressive” value, we arrive at an historically informed perspective for generative justice. 

The Impact of Global English in Xinjiang, China: Linguistic Capital and Identity Negotiation among the Ethnic Minority and Han Chinese Students

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Cultivating Subjectivities: The Class Politics of Convivial Labor in the Interstitial Spaces of Neoliberal Neglect

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Labor Importation Programs, 1942-1964

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Proceso judicial y cultura. Una mirada global

El Grupo de Investigaciones en Derecho Procesal de la Universidad de Medellín presenta a los profesionales del derecho y a la comunidad académica en general, un libro de alta calidad que orientará la formación de estudiantes en temas de derecho procesal contemporáneo. Presentamos orgullosos el libro Proceso judicial y cultura. Una mirada global", seguros de que permitirá la construcción de espacios adecuados para el estudio del proceso jurisdiccional desde su relacionamiento con la cultura, la política, la economía, la sociología, entre otros, que impactan en la configuración del proceso en todas sus áreas, dado que este no es neutral y adopta diferentes modelos de acuerdo con el contexto cultural y su ideología. Se destaca finalmente en esta obra la participación de un sólido y reconocido núcleo docente, integrado por profesores e investigadores vinculados a prestigiosas universidades e institutos internacionales, comprometidos con el estudio del derecho procesal contemporáneo. Así, en el libro el lector encontrará los aportes de Michele T aruffo (Italia), Cristina de Maglie (I talia), Mario E. Chaumet (Argentina), Eduardo Oteiza (Argentina), Petronio Calmon (Brasil), Joan Picó I Junoy (España), Majid Pourostad (Irán), Susan Haack (Estados Unidos), Stacie Strong (Estados Unidos) ; por Colombia se contó con los aportes de Juan Gabriel Rojas, Dimaro Agudelo, Hernán Villa, Débora Guerra y Nina Ferrer, y en la traducción de capítulos al español fue valiosa la labor que cumplieron Diana Ramírez, Orión Vargas, Dimaro Agudelo y Guido Águila (Perú).

LA CADENA GLOBAL DE PRENDAS DE VESTIR EN CENTROAMÉRICA Y LAS POSIBILIDADES DE FORTALECER SU COMPETITIVIDAD

Este artículo tiene el interés de analizar los mecanismos por medio de los cuales las empresas de la Industria de la Confección de Prendas de Vestir (pantalones, camisas, trajes, medias, entre otros) de Centroamérica se han insertado en la economía internacional. Para estos efectos, se ha considerado la Cadena Global de Mercancías, la cual permite clarificar el desarrollo de la producción de las prendas de vestir desde la adquisición de las materias primas, pasando por el proceso productivo, avanzando hacia el marketing y finalizando en el consumo final.El principal resultado de la investigación permite indicar que las empresas concentran sus esfuerzos únicamente en la fase del proceso productivo, es decir, realizan la labor de ensamblaje de la prenda de vestir, dependiendo directamente de la importación de materias primas en la fase inicial de la cadena y de la direccionalidad del marketing en la tercera fase, ésta última, fundamentalmente es realizada en países desarrollados. El segundo resultado, evidencia que los países de Centroamérica son atractivos para las firmas multinacionales productoras de prendas de vestir, debido a la existencia de bajos costos en la mano de obra, aprovechamiento de los beneficios otorgados por los Regímenes de Zona Francas y por las condiciones pre-establecidas en los acuerdos comerciales como la Iniciativa de la Cuenca del Caribe y el Acuerdo Multifibras.El análisis de la cadena ha permitido observar la posición competitiva de Centroamérica en la economía internacional desde la perspectiva de la industria de la confección de prendas de vestir, así como los retos que deben enfrentarse para insertarse exitosamente en la economía global.

Welfare Policies and Solidarity Toward the Elderly

In this paper we analyze the effect of welfare policies oriented toward the elderly on solidarity toward the elderly in a sample of European countries. The research question is whether more generous welfare policies crowd out solidarity. For this purpose, we analyze four waves of the SHARE database. We use multilevel analysis to estimate the effect of national variables on transfers toward the elderly, controlling for individual level variables. At the national level we focus on the effect of public spending on policies oriented toward the elderly after controlling for some other relevant variables, such as the proportion of elderly people, female labor force participation and unemployment. Our results indicate that expenditure in social protection toward the elderly has a positive and significant (albeit moderate) effect on the economic support received by the elderly (which is in line with the Crowding-in hypothesis). However, in the case of time transfers, we find that expenditure in social protection toward the elderly has a negative and significant impact on the time transfers received by the elderly (which is consistent with the Crowding-out hypothesis).

New Haitian social movements: Alternative modernities, (trans)local nationalisms, and solidarity economies

My dissertation is the first project on the Haitian Platform for Advocacy for an Alternative Development- PAPDA, a nation-building coalition founded by activists from varying sectors to coordinate one comprehensive nationalist movement against what they are calling an Occupation. My work not only provides information on this under-theorized popular movement but also situates it within the broader literature on the postcolonial nation-state as well as Latin American and Caribbean social movements. The dissertation analyzes the contentious relationship between local and global discourses and practices of citizenship. Furthermore, the research draws on transnational feminist theory to underline the scattered hegemonies that intersect to produce varied spaces and practices of sovereignty within the Haitian postcolonial nation-state. The dissertation highlights how race and class, gender and sexuality, education and language, and religion have been imagined and co-constituted by Haitian social movements in constructing ‘new’ collective identities that collapse the private and the public, the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern. My project complements the scholarship on social movements and the postcolonial nation-state and pushes it forward by emphasizing its spatial dimensions. Moreover, the dissertation de-centers the state to underline the movement of capital, goods, resources, and populations that shape the postcolonial experience. I re-define the postcolonial nation-state as a network of local, regional, international, and transnational arrangements between different political agents, including social movement actors. To conduct this interdisciplinary research project, I employed ethnographic methods, discourse and textual analysis, as well as basic mapping and statistical descriptions in order to present a historically-rooted interpretation of individual and organizational negotiations for community-based autonomy and regional development. ^