Peripheral Labour
Studies in the History of Partial Proletarianization

Takes an alternative look at the notion of 'wage-workers' and contributes to the development of a non-Eurocentric historiography.

Shahid Amin (Edited by), Marcel van der Linden (Edited by)

9780521589000, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 May 1997

184 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.3 cm, 0.285 kg

This volume takes an alternative look at the notion of 'wage-workers'. The contributors suggest that the idea of a 'pure' working class should be reconsidered and examine specific South Asian and Latin American case studies. A large part of the working class in the so-called third world and also in the main capitalist countries is either free (but coerced through non-economic means) or does hidden work labor e.g. as formally self-employed producers. By rethinking the fundamental assumptions of 'classical' labor and working-class history, the volume contributes to the development of a non-Eurocentric historiography.

Introduction Shahid Amin and Marcel van der Linden
1. Colonialism, capitalism and the discourse of freedom Gyan Prakash
2. The barriers to proletarianization: Bolivian mine labor, 1826–1918 Erick D. Langer
3. Labour, ecology and history in a Puerto Rican plantation region: 'classic' rural proletarianizations revisited Juan A. Giusti-Cordero
4. Coal and colonialism: production relations in an Indian coalfield, c.1895–1947 Dilip Simeon
5. 'Capital spectacles in British frames': capital, empire and Indian indentured migration to the British Caribbean Madhavi Kale
6. Unsettling the household: Act VI (of 1901) and the regulation of women migrants in colonial Bengal Samita Sen
7. Sordid class, dangerous class? Observations on Parisian ragpickers and their Cités during the nineteenth century Alain Faure
Notes on contributors.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural history [HBTB]