Analysis of article on Hyperprecarity

27 Abril 2022, 13:00 • Jennifer Leigh Mcgarrigle Montezuma de Carvalho

Lewis H, Dwyer P, Hodkinson S, Waite L. Hyper-precarious lives: Migrants, work and forced labour in the Global North. Progress in Human Geography. 2015;39(5):580-600. doi:10.1177/0309132514548303

Paper explores the “interconnections between neoliberal work and welfare regimes, asylum, immigration controls and the exploitation of migrant workers” (Abstract).

Focuses on the “more typical mass experiences of migrants at the bottom end of labour markets in Western Economies” (P582).

“To explore the work experiences of migrants this paper asks:

-      What is precarity and how does the concept relate to (migrant) working lives?

-      How can we understand the causes of extreme forms of migrant labour exploitation in precarious lifeworlds?”

Q1: What are the characteristics of labour markets under conditions of neoliberalisation? (Section II Part I)

Q2: What are the cumulative factors that constitute a precarious/vulnerable job?

Q3: What is the international definition of forced labour? (Section III)

Q4: What are the concerns associated with the rigid binary between forced/voluntary labour? (Section III)

Q5: How does the concept of “unfree labour” help us resolve this concern? (Section III)

Q6: What factors render migrants more susceptible to exploitation/ unfree labour? (Section IV Part 1 and Part 2).  

Q7: What is the concept coined by the authors of the paper?