[csaa-forum] Stephen Castles Seminar

Selvaraj Velayutham Selvaraj.Velayutham at scmp.mq.edu.au
Mon Aug 18 14:36:51 CST 2008


You are invited to a seminar by

Professor Stephen Castles, University of Oxford

on

'The Political Economy of the New Global Workforce'

Jointly presented by the
Department of Sociology, Macquarie University, and
Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, Macquarie University

Date: Thursday 28 August 2008
Time: 3-5 pm
Venue: C5C 498

** RSVP: By Wednesday 27th August to crsi at scmp.mq.edu.au or 9850 9171

ABSTRACT:

The period of accelerated globalisation since about 1980 has been
characterised by an increase in inequality both between nations, and
within nations. It has also been marked by a global restructuring of the
labour force that takes two forms: export of capital to low-wage
countries, and import of labour from low-wage areas, to carry out both
highly-skilled and lower-skilled work in rich economies.

Globalisation emerged in the 1980s as part of neo-liberal strategies to
roll back the welfare states and the relatively high wage levels that
had emerged in industrial countries during the post-1945 boom period.
The end of the Cold War and US military and ideological dominance
created the conditions for the global spread of neo-liberalism.
Penetration of third world economies by multi-national corporations
accelerated the destruction of existing modes of production. This led to
massive rural-urban migration, and then, in many case, to international
labour migration. At the same time, economic restructuring in developed
countries eliminated many skilled working-class jobs, and created
conditions of casualised labour and informal work. These trends
interacted to cause large-scale mobility of workers from South to North.

The result is a new mobile global workforce, stratified according to
gender, ethnicity, race, skills, origins and legal status. This is
discussed using the example of the restructuring of the labour force in
New York City.

Such trends are leading to major political shifts. The relatively
homogenous national industrial working classes that formed the basis of
trade unions and left parties up to the mid-20th century no longer
exist. In some countries, the combination of fears of competition from
cheaper labour, the persistence of racist ideologies derived from
colonialism and the emergence of new ideologies such as Islamophobia can
undermine the unity and strength of the labour movement. 

Despite legal and practical obstacles, migrants have organised powerful
social movements. Examples include the protest actions of youth of
migrant origin in France in 2005 and 2007, strikes and demonstration by
South Asian building workers in Dubai in 2006, and the movement for
migrant rights in the USA in 2006. This raises important question: does
migrant worker mobilisation lead to new forms of transnational politics?
Under what circumstances can migrant worker groups link up with social
movements for more humane forms of globalisation?


ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Stephen Castles is Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies at the
International Migration Institute (IMI), University of Oxford. He is a
sociologist and political economist, and currently works on global
migration issues, migration and development, and migration in Africa.
>From 2001-2006, he was Director of the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford
University. He has been an advisor to the Australian and British
Governments, and has worked for the ILO, the IOM, the European Union and
other international bodies. His recent books include: The Age of
Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World
(Fourth Edition, with Mark Miller, Basingstoke, Palgrave-Macmillan,
2008); Migration, Citizenship and the European Welfare State: A European
Dilemma (with Carl-Ulrik Schierup and Peo Hansen, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006); and Migration and Development: Perspectives
from the South (edited with Raúl Delgado Wise, Geneva: International
Organization for Migration, 2008).







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