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Abstract
This article examines the politics of governing forced labour. It develops and applies an approach drawing on Marx’s conception of the historical formation of ‘free’ labour in the process of ‘primitive accumulation’ and Gramsci’s conception of the ‘relations of force’. Viewed through this lens, rather than representing discrete ontological categories, the boundary between ‘free’ and ‘forced’ labour is repositioned as largely a contested and ambivalent artefact of governance. The concept of the ‘political relations of force’ highlights the ways in which such constructions are shaped by complex intersections between a diversity of different social forces. This approach is subsequently applied in an analysis of an International Labour Organization project on dealing with ‘traditional slavery’ in Niger.
Notes
1 Harvey (Citation2003) extends Luxemburg’s arguments into a broader claim that ‘accumulation by force, predation, and fraud’—or ‘accumulation by dispossession’—remains integral to the reproduction of capitalism. However, Harvey has little to say about the place of unfree labour in capitalist accumulation (cf. Brass, Citation2010, p. 28).
2 The following draws on author interviews with ILO officials in Geneva (June 2014) and Dakar (November 2014).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Nick Bernards
Nick Bernards is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University. He completed a PhD in International Relations at McMaster University in June 2016. His recent and forthcoming articles appear in New Political Economy, Third World Quarterly, and Review of African Political Economy, and he is currently preparing a book manuscript on The global governance of irregular labour.