Undocumented immigrants at work: invisibility, hypervisibility, and the making of the modern slave

Abstract The undocumented immigrant represents a socio-legal category, referring to a subject who does not have legal standing to be in the country in which they are located. Extending from their lack of legal standing, undocumented immigrant workers in the United States occupy spaces marked by extr...

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Main Authors: Paulina Segarra, Ajnesh Prasad
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer Nature 2024-01-01
Series:Humanities & Social Sciences Communications
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02449-5
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author Paulina Segarra
Ajnesh Prasad
author_facet Paulina Segarra
Ajnesh Prasad
author_sort Paulina Segarra
collection DOAJ
description Abstract The undocumented immigrant represents a socio-legal category, referring to a subject who does not have legal standing to be in the country in which they are located. Extending from their lack of legal standing, undocumented immigrant workers in the United States occupy spaces marked by extreme conditions of vulnerability, which were exacerbated by the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016. The aim of this ethnographic study is to make sense of the experiences of undocumented immigrants under a particularly vicious political rhetoric. Studying the lives of Latinx undocumented immigrant workers in the U.S., our findings capture how the dynamic interplay between the types of labor that they undertake and the socio-legal identity they are attributed function together to systematically disenfranchise them. Specifically, we explicate how doing invisible labor while, at the same time, occupying a hypervisible identity culminates in extreme conditions of vulnerability. In addition to developing the concept of hypervisible identity, we also inform theory on the idea of modern slavery. We contend that without the existence of invisible labor and hypervisible identity performing as interlocking, constitutive precursors, some forms of modern slavery would be negated.
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spelling doaj.art-6802129282f840c696d5c025c45800812024-01-07T12:16:24ZengSpringer NatureHumanities & Social Sciences Communications2662-99922024-01-0111111610.1057/s41599-023-02449-5Undocumented immigrants at work: invisibility, hypervisibility, and the making of the modern slavePaulina Segarra0Ajnesh Prasad1Universidad Anáhuac MéxicoEGADE Business School, Tecnologico de MonterreyAbstract The undocumented immigrant represents a socio-legal category, referring to a subject who does not have legal standing to be in the country in which they are located. Extending from their lack of legal standing, undocumented immigrant workers in the United States occupy spaces marked by extreme conditions of vulnerability, which were exacerbated by the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016. The aim of this ethnographic study is to make sense of the experiences of undocumented immigrants under a particularly vicious political rhetoric. Studying the lives of Latinx undocumented immigrant workers in the U.S., our findings capture how the dynamic interplay between the types of labor that they undertake and the socio-legal identity they are attributed function together to systematically disenfranchise them. Specifically, we explicate how doing invisible labor while, at the same time, occupying a hypervisible identity culminates in extreme conditions of vulnerability. In addition to developing the concept of hypervisible identity, we also inform theory on the idea of modern slavery. We contend that without the existence of invisible labor and hypervisible identity performing as interlocking, constitutive precursors, some forms of modern slavery would be negated.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02449-5
spellingShingle Paulina Segarra
Ajnesh Prasad
Undocumented immigrants at work: invisibility, hypervisibility, and the making of the modern slave
Humanities & Social Sciences Communications
title Undocumented immigrants at work: invisibility, hypervisibility, and the making of the modern slave
title_full Undocumented immigrants at work: invisibility, hypervisibility, and the making of the modern slave
title_fullStr Undocumented immigrants at work: invisibility, hypervisibility, and the making of the modern slave
title_full_unstemmed Undocumented immigrants at work: invisibility, hypervisibility, and the making of the modern slave
title_short Undocumented immigrants at work: invisibility, hypervisibility, and the making of the modern slave
title_sort undocumented immigrants at work invisibility hypervisibility and the making of the modern slave
url https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02449-5
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