A Value Theory of Inclusion: Informal Labour, the Homeworker, and the Social Reproduction of Value

By A. Mezzadri. Antipode, 2020

133 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Critically engaging with Marxist-Feminist debates, this article argues that only interpretations of social reproduction as value-producing capture the features of contemporary informalised labour relations. Building on early social reproduction analyses and informed by debates in political economy of development and feminist geography, the article sketches a ‘value theory of inclusion’ premised on the centrality of all labour to value-generation; accounting for different forms of exploitation; and stressing the dynamic interpenetration of production and reproduction in processes of labour-surplus extraction. By re-centering the geographical focus on the Global South, the article illustrates this interpenetration by identifying three reproductive mechanisms of value-generation, based on: industrial housing arrangements; spatial processes of externalisation of reproductive costs across urban-rural divides; and processes of formal subsumption of labour, analysed with special reference to women homeworkers in India. An inclusive theorisation of value-generation is crucial for the development of inclusive politics, recognizing exploitation in its varied manifestations.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9344c26a4d59664c03711cf64232029d5a2a9c40