Detalles del documento

The case of 19 Chinese immigrants illegally recruited to pick cockles from Morecambe Bay in northwest England who became caught in dangerous tides in 2004 is cited to advance the argument that migrant workers of the 21st century remain locked into the same forms of labor exploitation endured by their predecessors during the dawn of global capitalism, despite the promises of an "evangelical form of neoliberal capitalism" that has promised better working conditions & wages. Employer demand for cheap (often illegal) labor remains high & significant gaps remain between the situations of established or privileged foreign workers & common laborers. The relationship between labor (workers), capital (employers), & state functionaries (bureaucrats & politicians) in global labor flows is described & the new transnational dimensions of migration are discussed. A growing sense of "everyday cosmopolitanism" among migrants is noted & its cultural & subjective manifestations are considered. It is suggested that transnationalism & cosmopolitanism are key in workers' adaptation to the modern corporate form of globalization. Implications for relations between international migrants & national workers are considered & differences in the transnationalism/cosmopolitanism of various migrant worker groups are described; 4 case vignettes illustrate these arguments. Tables, References. K. Hyatt Stewart