Re-Imagining Identity: The Transformation of the Alevi Semah

Until the early 1990s, the Alevi community, a heterodox Islamic sect in Turkey, actively avoided explaining their beliefs to outsiders and were against permitting non-Alevis to enter their cem rituals. By the mid-1990s they began to hold their rituals publicly in the cemevi (lit. cem house) in Turkish cities and in their cultural centres in the diaspora. Almost all Alevi associations or the cemevis in the diaspora and ‘at home' have a semah group educated and organized by the executive. As opposed to rural/traditional cem rituals in which everybody may take part in the dance, the semahs performed in the urban cems are carried out by the semah groups consisting of young men and women. Moreover, these semah groups also perform in the non-ritual context. Thus, if the predominance of semah within the Alevi cem ritual is a ‘fact' to be studied, then differences in their present interpretations in Turkish cities and in the diaspora is another. This article examines these differences in the context of the transformation of the semah from the representation of religious identity to that of ethno-political identity.     

Traditionalization,or the making of a reputation: women,weddings and expenditure in Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

This article aims to show how traditionalization is enforced by women in Tajikistan in the realm of marriage, focusing on the economic dimension of life cycle rituals: ritual expenditure and gift-giving. It shows that from women’s points of view, performing ceremonial competition may itself be a resource to recover their reputation, for example when a matrimonial rupture has harmed it. Focusing on single mothers, it demonstrates how practices of traditionalization performed by women can be directed at addressing gender constraints and stereotypes, such as the normative relation between marriage and femininity, and how they may also secure women’s separate sphere of competence and relative financial autonomy.     

The Gendered and Racialised Division in the Korean Labour Market: The Case of Migrant Workers in the Catering Sector

Based on the empirical analysis of migrant women employed in the catering sector, this paper examines the gendered and racialised division in the Korean labour market. Given limited labour protection and the flexibilisation of the migrant workforce in the labour market, South Korea has been able to reduce possible economic and social costs and, at the same time, enjoy the benefits of the significant economic contribution of migrant workers. By looking at gender relations and racial discrimination in the catering sector, and inconsistent government policies, this paper underlines that migrant women are marginalised in the labour market owing to their ‘multiple vulnerability’ as women, migrants and undocumented workers.

An ‘Informal’ Revolution: State–Business Conflict and Institutional Change in Iran

Abstract

This study examines the causes of conflict between the Iranian state and the country's informal economic sectors during the years prior to the 1979 revolution. It adopts an institutionalist approach to argue that the state's introduction of new norms to guide the behaviour of key economic institutions resulted in acute conflict between the state and informal economic sectors. Institutions of credit lending, norms of reputation, and the characteristics of Iran's ‘bazaar sectors’ are examined in detail to substantiate the study's central arguments.     

Creating Surplus Labour: Neo-Liberal Transformations and the Development of Relative Surplus Population in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Many among the world’s population are surplus to the requirements of capital accumulation. These are people who become engaged in precarious employment both in rural and urban contexts and those who are involuntarily unemployed. Their presence has been particularly acute in “peripheral countries.” Mainstream economic literature explains this in terms of the dual labour market, where it is argued that surplus labour will eventually disappear with market-led economic development. Contrary to this explanation, this article argues, using Marx’s concept of relative surplus population (RSP), that under the existing neo-liberal framework such labour vulnerability is continually being created. This article charts the developmental history of Indonesia and demonstrates that the growth of RSP is an outcome of a neo-liberal transformation which favours capital accumulation at the service of global markets. Neo-liberal adjustments shape the development of RSP in three related ways. First, the adjustments change class relations and transform state orientation. Second, the reconfiguration of class dynamics and the state shapes the model of accumulation. Third, the model of accumulation eventually affects the size of RSP. It is argued that the disconnection between the domestic agricultural development and industrialisation has contributed to the maintenance of a large RSP in Indonesia.     

A Theoretical Note on Commodification of Labour Power in China and the Global Putting-Out System

This article captures China’s role in global manufacturing through the prism of conceptualisation of the commodification of labour power in Marxist theory. It argues that modalities of China’s labour force co-optation in assembly and lower value added production for export of consumer goods to advanced economies carries more of a family resemblance with putting-out systems of the pre-capitalist era than with the commodification of labour power sensu stricto marking the capitalist era from the mid-nineteenth century.     

Migration Pessimism and the Subjective Well‐Being of Migrant Households in Mexico

A new migration pessimism argues that the economic benefits of international labour migration for migrant households may not justify the social costs. This article provides a test of this argument based on the author's survey of 304 households in Jerez municipio (municipality), Zacatecas, Mexico, in 2009. The results indicate that active households (those with at least one migrant abroad) perceived their economic situation to have improved more, but both their social cohesion and their happiness to be less than those of non‐active households. Social cohesion (family unity and maintenance of values) is shown to be pivotal in the happiness differential enjoyed by the non‐active households.     

Oasis in the steppe: health and masculinity of Kazakhstani miners

ABSTRACT

This article studies the masculinities of Russian-speaking miners in Kazakhstan through an ethnographic study conducted in a miners’ sanatorium, a place of heightened sociality. Studies of gender in Central Asia have mostly focussed on women, and both masculinity and femininity are studied in relation to Islam and the nation-state. This article aims to make a contribution to the study of working-class masculinities in Northern Kazakhstan, arguing that labour and professional identities are important in performing masculinities. Kazakhstani miners wish to show that they are good colleagues, good drinkers, sexually capable and providers for the family. New economic pressures and deteriorating work conditions challenge the miner’s body and make it hard for miners to live up to the hegemonic masculinity.     

Norm dynamics and international organisations: South Africa in the African Union and International Criminal Court

Over the past two decades, South Africa has sought to perform several roles on the world stage, such as the economic dynamo of Southern Africa, a diplomatic heavyweight representing the African continent, and a norm leader on the world stage as a so-called ‘middle-power’. Although South Africa's evolution and rise as an important player in global affairs has generated a welcome body of critical scholarly literature, comparatively little analysis has been allocated to understanding how norm dynamics and the country's ever-evolving international identities have enabled it to construct and reconstruct its ‘interests’. Social constructivism is best suited for such an analysis because it can operationalise norms, commitments, identities, and interests, and it provides the epistemological tools to map the increasingly multilateral connections between global, regional, and domestic forums. By employing a rationalist approach to constructivism, this paper remedies the aforementioned gap in the literature by illustrating how South Africa constructs and reconstructs its identities and interests in relation to membership in international organisations (IOs). To that end, the paper examines the evolution of South Africa's participation in the African Union (especially ‘peacekeeping’ contributions) and the International Criminal Court. The paper concludes by assessing the theoretical implications and practical ramifications of the norm dynamics involved in South Africa's commitment to these two IOs.     

Debating gender and Kazakhness: memory and voice in poetic duel aytis between China and Kazakhstan

Aytis is a central component of Kazakh oral literature. It is a duelling performance of improvised oral poetry between two aqins (poets, or bards) accompanying themselves on the dombra, a two-stringed plucked instrument. This article analyses contending issues in a transnational aytis between Chinese and Kazakhstani aqins, and explores how gender plays into the complex interplay of transnational identity politics, nationalism, performer positionality, and the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. This article argues that, though minority actors are subject to state-patronized national projects and the gender paradigms those projects entail, they can also obtain empowerment from performing tradition as a way to legitimize their status as culture producers and flexible citizens. Situated as the guardians of a constructed gender balance in society, women performers of oral tradition occasionally find themselves with opportunities to transgress the boundaries of their national and gender norms.     

Secondary Precarity in Asia: Family Vulnerability in an Age of Unfree Labour

ABSTRACT

Scholarly discussions of precarious work have identified and analysed the conditions and structures that produce precarity, the contextual nuances that characterise worker relations across a range of sites and sectors and the possibilities of resistance by the precariat. In these studies, workers are often discussed with inadequate attention to their social embeddedness. Taking workers’ embeddedness in social relations and norms as a starting point for analysis, this article explores a secondary aspect of precarity amongst families of exploited workers. This aspect is analysed according to three registers of vulnerability and risk: economic (household and livelihood), intimate (anxiety and negative emotional relations) and physical (mobility and movement). The article outlines this framework through a case study of trafficked fishers and their families from Cambodia and the Philippines. Human trafficking is an extreme form of precarious labour, characterised by unfreedom and hyper-exploitation. The article contributes to the understanding of the trafficking of migrant fishers, which has not seen rigorous academic documentation and is relatively poorly understood in comparison to other forms of trafficking.     

Party Politics and Economic Policy in the New Germany

Germany experienced economic malaise in the 1990s, raising the question of whether or not the political system is capable of reform. The reactions of the political parties to economic problems demonstrate an enduring set of norms about economic policy which include a generous social welfare system and an emphasis on co-operation between business and labour. However, there is a general agreement about the need for policy reform, and recent moves by the Red-Green coalition indicate a willingness to undertake significant steps towards a slightly more pluralist and liberal set of policies. The dynamic of party politics over the last decade indicate a mature, stable political system capable of reform.     

Cross-Border Families in Hong Kong: The Role of Social Class and Politics

The massive relocation of industrial activities from Hong Kong to mainland China that followed in the wake of China's acceptance of foreign investment has given rise to two different sets of cross-border familial relations. In the first case, middle-class managers and technicians from Hong Kong have taken “second wives” during their stay in southern China. Hong Kong's mass media have been generally tolerant of this second-wife phenomenon, seeing it merely as a case of funglau (sexually potency), justifying it in terms of middle-class men's “soft spot,” and blaming the first wives for neglecting their duties. In the second case, workers from Hong Kong have crossed into the mainland in search of spouses because they believe that women in China are more affordable than those in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's restrictive immigration policies result in these mainland wives and children having to wait for ten years or more before receiving a one-way permit to migrate to Hong Kong. When they do arrive in Hong Kong, they have been discriminated against and condemned as causing Hong Kong's social and economic problems. This article examines how social class and politics have affected the way in which the mass media and the Hong Kong government have dealt with these two sets of cross-border families.     

Women in the House (of Parliament) in Fiji: What’s Gender Got to Do with It?

Abstract

Women in Fiji have made steady, albeit slow, progress in terms of parliamentary representation, with women now holding 14% of seats in the lower house of parliament. Some of the progress has occurred as a result of improvements associated with increased socio-economic development, such as education, female employment and incremental changes in women’s standing in Fiji society. Much of this change, however, has been due to women’s movements and civil society activism becoming more astute to concerns of gender equality and lobbying for women’s political participation. In a country that witnessed four political coups, women have had to create their own path into the public sphere. Despite progress, with an increasing number of women in the 2014 parliament, patriarchy is still a major force hindering women’s political advancement in Fiji. This paper argues that a combination of cultural stereotyping and persistent gendered norms contribute to masculinisation of the political realm and eulogise women’s role in the private sphere. But gender intersecting with ethnicity, age and class create differential levels of political agency for different groups of women in Fiji.     

Post-socialist China: Labour relations in Korean-managed factories

Abstract

How are labour relations practiced in Korean-managed factories in China? It is often said that labour relations in Korean transnational factories are abusive, even despotic. In this article, I argue that the disciplinary nature of labour relations in Korean factories in China is more complex and so multi-dimensional that they cannot be characterised as a simple economic matter of labour exploitation. These relations entail hierarchical segregation, normalising workers' behaviour through fines and salary reductions, personal degradation and dissimilar cultural practices.     

Precarity,Cognitive (Non-)Resistance and the Conservative Working Class in China

ABSTRACT

Workers’ resistance is crucial to understanding how the working class respond to the growing labour precarity in post-socialist China. The labour studies literature posits that inequality and volatile capital movements increase workers’ precarity and lead to stronger labour resistance, such as strikes. However, workers’ cognition as an integral part of resistance has been rarely studied. This article examines cognitive resistance by Chinese workers from different tier cities by looking at their social trust, class identity, understanding of policies and class solidarity. Despite capital movements and precarity causing more labour unrest, it does not necessarily lead to a stronger cognitive resistance. While inequality and precarity are greater in the more developed megacities with a shifting capital favourability, workers in megacities display a more conservative cognitive resistance than those from the lower-tier cities. This study of workers’ cognitive resistance provides insight into the future of the Chinese labour movement. It argues that the working class’s current cognitive non-resistance suggests that even if a window of opportunity were to appear in the wall of state oppression, workers are not cognitively prepared to coalesce into a coherent social movement that would bring about transformative changes.     

The politics and economics of “retraditionalization” in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan

This paper analyzes attitudes of women enrolled in secular and religious universities in the capital cities of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan toward family life and the role of Islam in the private and public sphere. Survey data indicate that women from both types of universities in both countries sympathize with retraditionalization, or “a return to traditional values, family life, and religion, which entails, in part, women being moved out of the work force.” Thus far, there is no statistical evidence of this phenomenon in the literature. Sympathy for retraditionalization is unfolding in the context of ongoing economic uncertainty that has plagued Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan since the Soviet Union's collapse, and its manifestations produce political responses. I argue that Kyrgyz and Tajik elites push a particular gender norm implying female secularization to counter expressions of retraditionalization among young women. In conclusion, I highlight counterintuitive findings of the survey regarding Islam's role in Central Asian society and discuss collective versus individual acts of resistance to female secularization policies in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.     

Baring it all for Activism: The 1985 Naked Protest in Mexico

This article analyses the 1985 naked protest carried out by silver miners of Pachuca, Mexico. This singular form of resistance, the first in Mexican labour history and organised by a dissident group within the miners' union called Liberación Minera (Miners Liberation), forced management to recognise and temporarily solve some of the miners' grievances. The naked protest unveiled the shady practices of the miners' employer, the state-owned Compañía Real del Monte y Pachuca, which refused to provide work clothes and safety equipment to miners. It also pointed to the miners' union leadership's complicity in the deterioration of labour conditions. Part of the miners' naked protest success had to do with the support that they gained from members of the left-wing press who used the protest to offer an early critique of Mexico's neoliberal policies. The 1985 naked protest occurred during one of Mexico's most severe economic crises and only four years before the company became privatised. This protest is one of the last examples of organised labour resistance before industries closed down and fired thousands of workers.     

The veterans’ gala: the use of tradition in an industrial labour conflict in contemporary Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT

Since its privatization in 1995, Kazakhstan’s largest steel mill has been in a restructuring process characterized by workforce reduction, augmented pressure on remaining jobs and labour conflict over wages, work conditions and corporate social responsibility. In 2013, in an attempt to re-establish harmonious relationships with workers, management invited the mill’s former labour aristocracy to join a newly established veterans’ council, a forum resembling traditional aksakal councils, to discuss the company’s difficult situation. In the context of a banquet in honour of the veterans, tradition became the contested terrain over which labour and capital struggled to endorse their own visions of the industrial future. As corporate capitalist visions of efficiency and professionalism, ethno-national concerns for harmony and stability, and practices rooted in the Soviet labour legacy clash, tradition is staged by actors as a practice which can either affirm or challenge industrial leadership in a labour conflict.     

Gender,Work and Resistance: South Korean Textile Industry in the 1970s

This paper examines the forces behind South Korean women workers' labour activism in the 1970s, an era of rapid export-orientated industrialisation. Most of the labour strikes initiated by women occurred in the labour-intensive manufacturing sector, and they were in sharp contrast to the overall labour quiescence of male workers during the same period. The actions of South Korean women refute widely held assumptions about the docility of Asian women workers. This case study suggests that women rebel when their lives undergo drastic changes under a set of macro and micro circumstances. Women dialectically interact with the capitalist-patriarchal structure as conscious human agents, and the result of such interaction is their gender- and class-based collective resistance.