‘Wasted Precariat’: Migrant Work in European Societies
19. 5. 2016 | Human Rights and Minorities, Politics
The article by Mojca Pajnik entitled ‘Wasted Precariat’: Migrant Work in European Societies was published in Progress in Development Studies, April, vol. 16 no. 2, pp. 159-172
This article discusses migrants’ experiences of European migration-labour. It shows how precariousness is materialized in migrants’ work and lives. I show how the subordination of migrants to the demands of the (global) market shapes the work of ‘third country migrants’ as precarious in European economies. Specific migration policies as well as labour processes and their regulation construct migrants as ‘wasted precariat’, in line with Bauman’s (2004) notion of ‘wasted humans’. This process occurs at the intersection of migrant workers’ immigration status, the governance of immigration and labour relations as well as features of the industries that employ migrant workers.
Available online: http://pdj.sagepub.com/content/16/2/159.abstract
“In order to understand migrant precariousness we need to consider migration/labour market order of workfare societies and analyse – intersectionally – migrant statuses, policies and industries of migrant work. Adopting such an approach helps us coin migrant precariousness as ‘wasted precariousness’.”
