Marxism and Migration

0560981 - FLÚ 2023 RIV CH eng M - Monography Chapter
Swain, Daniel
Inequality, Fragmentation, and Belonging: John Berger on Migrant Labour.
Marxism and Migration. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022 - (Ritchie, G.; Carpenter, S.; Mojab, S.), s. 157-181. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. ISBN 978-3-030-98838-8
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA19-20031S
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : alienation * belonging * equality/inequality * fragmentation * guest workers * Hannah Arendt * John Berger * labour power * methodological nationalism * politicization * social reproduction
OECD category: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98839-5_7

John Berger’s 1975 study of migrant labour, A Seventh Man, is an example of the enduring relevance of a Marxist approach to migration. Berger’s analysis is rooted in Marxist concepts of alienation and ideological mystification, expanded through three further concepts: the naturalization of an unequal hierarchy of labours, the fragmentation of the worker into a bundle of capacities and needs that both underpins and is reinforced by this inequality, the mystified idea of belonging, in which migrant workers do not belong where they work and exist. Berger’s Marxist approach is contrasted with the “methodological nationalism” characteristic of liberal political philosophy and Hannah Arendt’s focus on exclusion and statelessness. Approaching the migrant as worker provides a necessary corrective to these approaches, but comparison with Arendt helps clarify Berger’s ideas about how to adequately challenge and overcome inequality by politicizing the status of migrant workers and asserting a radical principle of equality.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0334011