Reconsidering Labor Coercion Through the Logics of Im/Mobility and the Environment

Abstract

The 'new mobilities paradigm' formulated in the early 2000s allowed scholars of labor to explore the possibilities of the concept of im/mobility as an interpretive framework for understanding processes of work and labor. This paper contributes to the continued cross-fertilization between mobility studies and labor studies by exploring the theoretical and methodological prospects of focusing on assemblages of temporal- spatial practices that simultaneously compel and confine movement. The article suggests that means, processes, and extent of labor coercion can be understood by analyzing how people are compelled to move or are confined to specific sites temporarily or permanently. It discusses how employing space and im/mobility as conceptual tools uncover the role of diffused, hierarchical layers through which labor coercion emerges. In this regard, environment emerges as a significant factor. The paper examines how mobility becomes a line of flight from sites/fields of coercion, or locks people into new forms of coercive relations; the legal/ formal or informal frameworks that regulate or govern labor im/mobility within specific sites; and how the logics of deployment and coercion overlap and mutually reinforce one another. Ultimately, it aims to contribute to the calls for non-linear, newly spatialized histories of labor processes and labor coercion.