Rethinking “surplus populations”: theory from the peripheries
Critical scholarship on twenty-first century capitalist development has called attention to certain structural limits on employment growth. Large populations excluded from formal employment are seen to eke out a precarious subsistence in informal economies, seemingly “surplus” to the needs of capita...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
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2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173971 |
| _version_ | 1811687712375177216 |
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| author | Cowan, Tom Campbell, Stephen Kalb, Don |
| author2 | School of Social Sciences |
| author_facet | School of Social Sciences Cowan, Tom Campbell, Stephen Kalb, Don |
| author_sort | Cowan, Tom |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Critical scholarship on twenty-first century capitalist development has called attention to certain structural limits on employment growth. Large populations excluded from formal employment are seen to eke out a precarious subsistence in informal economies, seemingly “surplus” to the needs of capital. This article, by contrast, aims to recast labor in the “peripheries,” not as an externalized quantity redundant to emerging economic formations, but rather as integral if of-ten hidden features of capitalist value extraction. Rethinking, in this way, “surplus populations,” we argue for particular attention to the heterogeneity of contemporary capitalist labor arrangements and to associated patterns of ideological de-valuation, which underpin capitalist markets in the South and East as well as in peripheralized spaces in the North and West. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T05:20:40Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/173971 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T05:20:40Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1739712024-03-10T15:30:26Z Rethinking “surplus populations”: theory from the peripheries Cowan, Tom Campbell, Stephen Kalb, Don School of Social Sciences Social Sciences Capitalism Informality Critical scholarship on twenty-first century capitalist development has called attention to certain structural limits on employment growth. Large populations excluded from formal employment are seen to eke out a precarious subsistence in informal economies, seemingly “surplus” to the needs of capital. This article, by contrast, aims to recast labor in the “peripheries,” not as an externalized quantity redundant to emerging economic formations, but rather as integral if of-ten hidden features of capitalist value extraction. Rethinking, in this way, “surplus populations,” we argue for particular attention to the heterogeneity of contemporary capitalist labor arrangements and to associated patterns of ideological de-valuation, which underpin capitalist markets in the South and East as well as in peripheralized spaces in the North and West. Published version 2024-03-08T04:52:02Z 2024-03-08T04:52:02Z 2023 Journal Article Cowan, T., Campbell, S. & Kalb, D. (2023). Rethinking “surplus populations”: theory from the peripheries. Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 2023(97), 7-21. https://dx.doi.org/10.3167/fcl.2023.970102 0920-1297 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173971 10.3167/fcl.2023.970102 2-s2.0-85176772752 97 2023 7 21 en Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology © 2023 The Authors. This article is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license as part of Berghahn Open Anthro, a subscribe-to-open model for APC-free open access made possible by the journal’s subscribers. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Social Sciences Capitalism Informality Cowan, Tom Campbell, Stephen Kalb, Don Rethinking “surplus populations”: theory from the peripheries |
| title | Rethinking “surplus populations”: theory from the peripheries |
| title_full | Rethinking “surplus populations”: theory from the peripheries |
| title_fullStr | Rethinking “surplus populations”: theory from the peripheries |
| title_full_unstemmed | Rethinking “surplus populations”: theory from the peripheries |
| title_short | Rethinking “surplus populations”: theory from the peripheries |
| title_sort | rethinking surplus populations theory from the peripheries |
| topic | Social Sciences Capitalism Informality |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/173971 |
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