Skip to main content

Neoliberal Moral Economy: Migrant Workers’ Value Struggles Across Temporal and Spatial Dimensions

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Commonalities of Global Crises

Abstract

This chapter begins with a historical contextualization of postsocialist central and eastern European labour migration to the UK in order to explore how neoliberal restructuring has impacted migrants’ subjectivities through the imposition of the work ethic and how this affects migrant workers’ strategies in the UK. Through a comparative perspective, the chapter exposes how distinctive histories and local neoliberalization processes inform Polish and Slovenian workers’ (self)disciplining practices as well as their strategies of resistance.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Eurostat: Median gross hourly earnings: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Median_gross_hourly_earnings,_all_employees_%28excluding_apprentices%29,_2010_%28%C2%B9%29_YB15.png

  2. 2.

    Report on equality between women and men 2014: http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/files/annual_reports/150304_annual_report_2014_web_en.pdf

References

  • Anderson, B., et al. (2006). Fair enough? Central and East European migrants in low wage employment in the UK. Oxford: COMPAS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Awsiukiewicz-Tomczak, A. M. (2009). Motherhood experiences through transformations: Narratives of intergenerational continuities and changes in post-Communist Poland. PhD thesis. Oxford: Brookes University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bishop, K. (2004). Working time patterns in the UK, France, Denmark and Sweden. Labour Market Trends, 112(3), 113–122.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bohle, D. (2006). Neoliberal hegemony, transnational capital and the terms of the EU’s eastward expansion. Capital & Class, 30(Spring), 57–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bohle, D., & Greskovits, B. (2012). Capitalist diversity on Europe’s periphery. Cornell: University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Böröcz, J. (2001). Introduction: Empire and coloniality in the ‘Eastern enlargement’ of the European union. In J. Böröcz & M. Kovasc (Eds.), Empire’s new clothes: Unveiling EU enlargement (pp. 4–51). Telford: Central Europe Review.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: University press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1987). What makes a social class? On the theoretical and practical existance of groups. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 32(1), 1–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buchowski, M. (2006). The specter of orientalism in Europe: From exotic other to stigmatized brother. Anthropological Quarterly, 79(3), 463–482.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ciupijus, Z. (2011). Mobile Central Eastern Europeans in Britain: Successful European Union citizens and disadvantaged labour migrants? Work Employment & Society, 25(3), 540–550.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cousins, C. R., & Tang, N. (2004). Working time and work and family conflict in the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. Work Employment & Society, 18(3), 531–549.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Einhorn, B. (1993). Cinderella goes to market : Citizenship, gender and women’s movements in East Central Europe. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fihel, A., & Okolski, M. (2009). Dimensions and effects of labour migration to EU countries: The case of Poland. In B. Galgoczi, J. Leschke, & A. Watt (Eds.), EU labour migration since enlargement: Trends, impacts and policies (pp. 185–210). Surrey: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. (2004). You can checkout anytime, but you can never leave: Spatial boundaries in a high commitment organization. Human Relations, 57(1), 75–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Forrester, S. E. S., Zaborowska, M. J., & Gapova, E. (2004). Introduction: Maping postsocialist cultural studies. In S. E. S. Forrester, M. J. Zaborowska, & E. Gapova (Eds.), Over the wall/after the fall: Post-communist cultures through an East-West gaze (pp. 1–36). Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox, J. E., Moroşanu, L., & Szilassy, E. (2012). The racialization of the new European migration to the UK. Sociology, 46(4), 680–695.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N. (2009a). Feminism, capitalism and the cunning of history. New Left Review, 56(2), 97–117.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N. (2009b). Scales of justice: Re-imagining political space in a globalizing world. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N. (2011). Marketization, social protection, emancipation: Toward a neo-Polanyian conception of capitalist crisis. In C. Calhoun & G. Derluguian (Eds.), Business as usual: The roots of the global financial meltdown (pp. 137–158). New York: University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Glass, C., & Fodor, E. (2007). From public to private maternalism? Gender and welfare in Poland and Hungary after 1989. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender State & Society, 14(3), 323–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haylett, C. (2001). Illegitimate subjects?: Abject whites, neoliberal modernisation, and middle-class multiculturalism. Environment and PlanningD: Society and Space, 19(3), 351–370.

    Google Scholar 

  • HO, Home Office. (2004). No UK benefits for EU accession countries. http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/pressreleases/No_Uk_Benefits_For_Eu_Accession_. Accessed 20 Dec 2009.

  • IOM, International Organisation for Migration (1999). Migration potential in Central and Eastern Europe. Geneva: International Organisation for Migration.

    Google Scholar 

  • Javornik-Skrbinšek, J. (2010). Exploring maternal employment in post-socialist countries: Understanding the implications of childcare policies. PhD thesis. University of Southampton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kanjuo-Mrčela, A., & Ignjatović, M. (2015). Od prožnosti do prekarnosti dela: stopnjevanje negativnih sprememb na začetku 21. Stoletja. Teorija in praksa, 52(3), 350–381.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuus, M. (2004). Europe’s eastern expansion and the reinscription of otherness in East-Central Europe. Progress in Human Geography, 28(4), 472–489.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, S. (2003). The integration of paid work and the rest of life. Is post-industrial work the new leisure? Leisure Studies, 22(4), 343–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacKenzie, R., & Forde, C. (2009). The rhetoric of the ‘good worker’ versus the realities of employers’ use and the experiences of migrant workers. Work, Employment and Society, 23(1), 142–159.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCollum, D., & Findlay, A. (2011). Employer and labour provider perspectives on Eastern European migration to the UK. Southampton: Centre for Population Change.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDowell, L. (2009a). Old and new European economic migrants: Whiteness and managed migration policies. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35(1), 19–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McDowell, L. (2009b). Working bodies : Interactive service employment and workplace identities. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mencinger, J. (2004). Transition to a national market and a market economy: A gradualist approach. In M. Mrak, M. Rojec, & C. Silva-Jauregui (Eds.), Slovenia: From Yugoslavia to the European Union (pp. 67–82). Washington: World Bank Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miroiu, M. (2004). State men, market women. The effects of left conservatism on gender politics in Romanian transition. Feminismo/s, 3(6), 207–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Močnik, R. (2002). The Balkans as an element in ideological mechanisms. In D. I. Bjelić (Ed.), Balkan as metaphor (pp. 79–116). London: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Owczarzak, J. (2009). Introduction: Postcolonial studies and postsocialism in Eastern Europe. Focaal, 2009(53), 1–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ozoliņa-Fitzgerald, L. (2015). The moral economy of post-Soviet neo-liberalism: An ethnography of a Latvian unemployment office. Central and Eastern European employment relations in perspective: History geography and variegation. Conference paper. London: University of Greenwich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peck, J. (2002). Political economies of scale: Fast policy, interscalar relations, and neoliberal workfare. Economic Geography, 78(3), 331–360.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rose, M. (2005). Do rising levels of qualification alter work ethic, work orientation and organizational commitment for the worse? Evidence from the UK, 1985–2001. Journal of Education and Work, 18(2), 131–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Samaluk, B. (2013). Unveiling the political screen discourse on immigration. http://www.migrantvoice.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=359%3Abarbara-samaluk-unveiling-the-political-screen-discourse-on-immigration&catid=94%3Abarbara-samaluk&Itemid=5. Accessed 20 May 2014.

  • Samaluk, B. (2014a). Racialised ‘price-tag’: Commodification of migrant workers on transnational employment agencies’ websites. In M. Pajnik & F. Anthias (Eds.), Work and the challenges of belonging: Migrants in globalizing economies (pp. 154–177). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Samaluk, B. (2014b). Whiteness, ethnic privilege and migration: A Bourdieuian framework. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 29(4), 370–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Samaluk, B. (2015). Migrant workers’ engagement with transnational staffing agencies in Europe: Symbolic power guiding transnational exchange. Work, Employment and Society, online publication (September), 1–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Samaluk, B. (2016). Migration, consumption and work: Postcolonial perspective on post-socialist migration to the UK. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization (forthcoming).

    Google Scholar 

  • Sayer, A. (2000). Moral economy and political economy. Studies in Political Economy, 61(Spring), 79–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sayer, A. (2005). The moral significance of class. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Skeggs, B. (2004a). Exchange, value and affect: Bourdieu and ‘the self’. In L. Adkins & B. Skeggs (Eds.), Feminism after Bourdieu (pp. 75–96). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing/The Sociological Review.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skeggs, B. (2004b). Class, self, culture. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skeggs, B. (2011). Imagining personhood differently: Person value and autonomist working class value practices. The Sociological Review, 59(3), 496–513.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skeggs, B., & Loveday, V. (2012). Struggles for value: Value practices, injustice, judgment, affect and the idea of class. The British Journal of Sociology, 63(3), 472–490.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Śliwa, M. (2009). Globalization and social change: The polish experience. In S. B. Banerjee, V. C. M. Chio, & R. Mir (Eds.), Organizations, markets and imperial formations: Towards an anthropology of globalization (pp. 198–216). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slovova, K. (2006). Looking at Western feminisms through the double lens of Eastern Europe and the Third World. In J. Lukić, J. Regulska, & D. Zaviršek (Eds.), Women and citizenship in Central and Eastern Europe (pp. 245–264). Aldershot: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Somers, M. (2008). Genealogies of citizenship: Markets, statelessness and the right to have rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Standing, G. (2011). The precariat: The new dangerous class. New York: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanovnik, T. (2004). Social sector developments. In M. Mrak, M. Rojec, & C. Silva-Jauregui (Eds.), Slovenia: From Yugoslavia to the European Union (pp. 315–333). Washington: World Bank Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stenning, A., & Hörschelmann, K. (2008). History, geography and difference in the post-socialist world: Or, do we still need post-socialism? Antipode, 40(2), 312–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stenning, A., et al. (2010). Domesticating neo-liberalism : Spaces of economic practice and social reproduction in post-socialist cities. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • UEM, Urad za enake možnosti (2005). Podlaga za Resolucijo o nacionalnem programu za enake možnosti žensk in moških (2005–2013). Ljubljana: UEM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vaughan-Whitehead, D. (2003). EU enlargement versus social Europe? : The uncertain future of the European social model. Cheltenham: Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vodopivec, M. (2004). Labour market developments in the 1990’s. In M. Mrak, M. Rojec, & C. Silva-Jauregui (Eds.), Slovenia: From Yugoslavia to the European Union (pp. 292–314). Washington: World Bank Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watson, P. (1993). The rise of masculinism in Eastern Europe. New Left Review, I(198), 71–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiner, E. (2009). Dirigism and Déjà Vu Logic: The gender politics and perils of EU enlargement. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 16(3), 211–228.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wills, J., et al. (2010). Global cities at work: New migrant divisions of labour. England: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Samaluk, B. (2016). Neoliberal Moral Economy: Migrant Workers’ Value Struggles Across Temporal and Spatial Dimensions. In: Karner, C., Weicht, B. (eds) The Commonalities of Global Crises. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50273-5_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50273-5_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-50271-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-50273-5

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics