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...
Main Authors: | , |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
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Springer Nature
2024-01-01
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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. |
first_indexed | 2024-03-08T16:22:21Z |
format | Article |
id | doaj.art-6802129282f840c696d5c025c4580081 |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 2662-9992 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-03-08T16:22:21Z |
publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
publisher | Springer Nature |
record_format | Article |
series | Humanities & Social Sciences Communications |
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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