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.     

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.     

What explains the rise of majority–minority tensions and conflict in Xinjiang?

ABSTRACT

In the past few years there has been a rise of inter-ethnic violence in China. While ethno-cultural repression and ineffective state policies are correctly attributed as key culprits behind this reality, this article suggests that socio-economic factors play a fundamental contributory role as well. Using the Xinjiang case, the article maps ethnic tensions and violence as a manifestation and expression of a growing and heightened ethno-cultural consciousness stemming from ethnic minorities’ low socio-economic status due, in part, to internal Han migration, and a labour market process – involving agency and structure – that has shaped a split and segmented labour market.     

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.     

时代变化背景下对“两个务必”的重新审视

党的两代领导人在不同历史背景下都对"两个务必"作出了要求.在当前全面建设小康社会的新形势下,重新强调"两个务必",对于维护好、实现好、发展好人民群众利益,巩固党的执政地位,实现党的十六大制定的发展目标具有十分重要的意义.     

试论西方哲学中的“常识”概念

"常识"是西方哲学中的一个重要概念.它具有普遍性、直接性、明晰性的品格,其内容涉及形而上学、认识论和实践哲学的各个方面,因此成为西方哲学中被经常讨论的话题.结合对英国古典经验主义、苏格兰常识哲学和批判的常识主义等对"常识"概念的研究表明,它在西方哲学中的意义、地位和作用是十分明显的.因此,加强对"常识"概念的研究是我们对西方哲学研究中不应忽视的方面.     

深入理解“三个代表”重要思想的关键是转换思维方式

思维方式的解放较之观念的解放是更为根本的思想解放.要使主体能够内化"三个代表"重要思想,必须具备与这一思想相通的思维方式.这就需要积极推进由传统的"革命党思维"向"执政党思维"转换,这是当前保持与时俱进精神状态、深入理解"三个代表"重要思想的关键.     

论法律适用中的"契约自由"原则——国际合同的自体法

肇始于16世纪的"意思自治"理论,标志着合同准据法理论发展的里程碑,即客观论向主观论的发展,特别是以意思自治为主、辅之以最密切联系原则的合同自体法理论的提出,更是将合同准据法理论推向一个前所未有的高度,它一改过去合同法律适用的机械性做法,强调尊重当事人自主意识,并将契约当做一个整体来看待,体现了国际私法合同法律适用的潮流和趋势。     

律师从事证券业务对第三者的民事法律责任研究——兼与注册会计师比较

近几年来,由于证券市场的风起云涌,人们对证券市场中介机构的法律责任日益凸现.中国证监会等证券市场监督机构也加大了对证券市场中介机构的处罚力度,但对于市场中介机构,尤其是与证券市场发展息息相关的会计师事务所与律师事务所应该承担的民事法律责任,特别是对于第三者,主要是证券投资者的民事法律责任却缺乏明确的规范,尽管其行政责任已经很明确[1].本文拟从股票发行上市及交易的角度,对律师对第三者(主要是指证券市场投资者)的民事法律责任制度(以下简称"律师对于第三者的责任")作出初步的研究.     

积极稳妥地处理好共产党员信仰宗教的问题

在少数民族聚居地区和信教群众聚居地区开展保持共产党员先进性教育,必须注重研究解决好特殊性问题。在解决共产党员信仰宗教问题上不能犯操之过急的幼稚病,要坚决纠正在共产党员信仰宗教问题上存在着的认识误区,坚定不移地贯彻执行党的宗教信仰自由政策,坚持不懈地对党员进行马克思主义无神论教育,把党员信教与随顺民族风俗区别开来,积极而稳妥地处理好共产党员信仰宗教的问题。