Migration, Racism and Labor Exploitation in the World-System (Political Economy of the World-System Annuals)

This book offers a historically sweeping yet detailed view of world-systemic migration as a racialized process. Since the early expansion of the world-system, the movement of people has been its central process. Not only have managers of capital moved to direct profitable expansion; they have also forced, cajoled or encouraged workers to move in order to extract, grow, refi ne, manufacture and transport materials and commodities. The book offers historical cases that show that migration introduces and deepens racial dominance in all zones of the world-system. This often forces indigenous and imported slaves or bonded labor to extract, process and move raw materials. Yet it also often creates a contradiction between capital's need to direct labor to where it enables profitability, and the desires of large sections of dominant populations to keep subordinate people of color marginalized and separate. Case studies reveal how core states are concurrently users and blockers of migrant labor. Key examples are Mexican migrants in the United States, both historically and in contemporary society. The United States even promotes of an image of a society that welcomes the immigrant--while policy realities often quite different. Nonetheless, the volume ends with a vision of a future whereby communities from below, both activists and people simply following their communal interests, can come together to create a society that overcomes racism. Its final chapter is a hopeful call by Immanuel Wallerstein for people to make small changes that, together, can bring real about real, revolutionary change. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Dedication Contents 1 Introduction Part I Longue Durée 2 Immigration as Racial Dominance Since 1492: Migration and the Modern World-System of the Americas 3 Migration, Resource Frontiers, and Extractive Peripheries: Toward a Typology 4 Operationalizing the Resource Frontier: Russian Fur Hunting and Racialized Migration in the Aleutian Islands Part II Migration in the US 5 The First Large Wave of Mexican Migration to the US: Rail Construction and Maintenance’s Contribution to World-System Development, 1890–1929 6 The Deportability Regime: From Bad to Worse in Central Texas Under Obama and Trump 7 Heritage, Belonging, and Active Citizenship in the United States: A Role Model for the EU? Part III World Migrations Today 8 Partition-Induced Migrations: How Migration Has (Re)shaped Social and Political Identities in Divided States 9 A Search for Post-Nationalist Imaginaries in ‘Bengal’: Exploring Ecoethnoscapes (Bioregions With Permeable Boundaries) 10 Labor Migration, Agrarian Crises and Livelihood Transformations in the Making of a World City: Bangalore in Critical Perspective 11 “Going Home Is Not an Option”: Filipino Domestic Workers in the Middle East Part IV Conclusion—The Way Ahead 12 Migrations and Their Politics Afterword Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index "This volume analyses migration, racism, and exploitation in the world-system, where the movement of people has been its central process, ending with a vision of a future where communities from below can come together to create a society that overcomes racism"-- Provided by publisher