Author: Chibuzo Ejiogu
Power and Voice of Migrant Labour - the Role of Migrant Networks and Civil Society Organisations
Chibuzo Ejiogu
PhD Student, University of Strathclyde.
ILPC 2017 Conference Abstract
Power and Voice of Migrant Labour - the Role of Migrant Networks and Civil Society Organisations
This research explores the influence of state regulation in facilitating the control of migrant labour by capital and the collective responses of migrant networks and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in enhancing migrants’ labour power and voice within the context of the political economy. It explores the exercise of effort power and mobility power by migrant workers (Smith, 2006, 2010; Thompson and Smith, 2010) and the dynamics of their labour collectivism in seeking to organise and articulate the voices of migrant workers (Martinez Lucio and Stewart, 1997; 2011). Data was collected using a combination of semi-structured interviews and active participant research methodologies contributing to a greater engagement and collaboration between academic research and grassroots activists, migrant networks and CSOs. The findings reveal a complex relationship between the effort power and mobility power of migrants, power along one dimension was used to compensate for a perceived lack of power along the other dimension by migrant workers. Power was closely related to the enhancement and articulation of collective voices of migrant labour in challenging control and exclusion. Paradoxically, attempts to exercise migrant power can result in contradictory outcomes. This extends our understanding of the complex relationship between control, resistance and consent within the capitalist labour process.