Foregrounding the postcolonial context and racial subjugation – and thus suspending the thesis that the category of labour is universal – this collection examines the temporal and spatial trajectories of global capitalism. ＂Labour＂, Marx states in the Introduction to the Grundrisse, ＂seems a quite simple category. But, it is argued here, any radical programme for a critique of global capitalism needs to complexify, expand, and in the process perhaps explode, Marx’s and others’ glassy formulations of labour. As such – and whilst displacing the neoliberal appropriation of cultural difference implicit in values such as equality, diversity, and dignity – this book considers whether historical-materialist concepts, and the political interventions they inform, can be immediately applied across the global space, given the postcoloniality that notions of racial and cultural difference have produced. Foregrounding the colonial and the racial, and addressing how they inflect the various specifications of the category of labour, this book offers an original perspective on the juridical and ethical architectures, procedures, and instruments at work in global capitalism. It will be invaluable to those concerned with analyzing, and overcoming, the current inequities that characterize today’s global division of labour.
