In the great civilisations of the past, shapeshifting promised a restoration of order in turbulent times in return for the deference of loyal subjects. It was a strategy of the powerful to maintain advantage and could also be used to bind opponents to an undesired form. This study finds its resonance in the contemporary shapeshifting that is the supposed transition from the fossil fuel economy. With reference to the fusion of oil, grain and sugar companies in Brazil's ethanol sector, it explores how amidst economic, environmental and political insecurity these “old villains” of the carbon economy have fused and emerged as the “new heroes” of the green economy. Accounts of dissenting rural subjects, however, unveil the mythical nature of avowed social gains from this shapeshifting. Amidst rural conflict and a successive weakening of regulation, it becomes evident how their petrification, in a metaphorical and increasingly literal sense is required.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the variation in migrant labour market regimes and what these reveal about variant patterns of state and extra state regulation in two contemporary political economies. Design/methodology/approach Research based upon a participatory action research agenda in Mexico and the north of Ireland. Migrant workers and their families where involved in the project and its development. This included participation in the research design, its focus and purpose. Findings Migrant workers experiences of labour market subordination are part of wider processes of subordination and exclusion involving both the state, but also wider, often meta- and para-state, agents. In different locations, states and contexts, the precarity experienced by migrant workers and their families highlights the porosity of the formal rational legal state and moreover, in the current economic context, the compatibility of illegality and state sponsored neoliberal economic policies. Research limitations/implications It is important to extend this study to other geographic and political economy spaces. Practical implications The study challenges the limits of state agency suggesting the need for extra state, i.e. civil society, participation to support and defend migrant workers. Originality/value Notwithstanding the two very different socio-economic contexts, the paper reveals that the interaction, dependence and restructuring of migrant labour markets can be understood within the context of meta- and para-state activities that link neoliberal employment insecurities. Migrants’ experiences illustrate the extent to which even formal legal employment relations can also be sustained by para- and meta- (illegal and alegal) actions and institutions.
Emerging patterns of south–south migration and rapid economic growth in developing countries have highlighted the need for new conceptual contributions accounting for the experiences of migrant workers in the Global South. The concept of super-exploitation has been among those contributions with reference to appalling working conditions and the dependence of developing countries on the export of commodities. However, this article argues that the understanding of contemporary forms of super-exploitation experienced by migrant workers remains underdeveloped. Drawing upon 42 semi-structured interviews with Haitian workers in Brazil, this study makes an innovative contribution to the conceptualisation of super-exploitation in the 21st century, particularly from the perspective of social reproduction theory. This article argues that super-exploitation can be defined more accurately as a combination of economic and non-economic forces that entangle productive–reproductive–exploitative relationships, thereby shaping the dependence of workers on wages below the value necessary for their social reproduction.
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