Essential Work: Using A Social Reproduction Lens to Investigate the Re-Organisation of Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 has shaken a foundational pillar of global capitalism: the organisation of work. Whilst workers have commonly been categorised based on skills, during the pandemic the ‘essential worker’ categorisation has taken prominence. This paper explores the concept of essential work from a global feminist social reproduction perspective. The global perspective is complemented by a zoom-in on Mozambique as a low-income country in the Global South, occupying a peripheral position in global and regional economies and with a large share of vulnerable and essential workers. We show that the meaning of essential work is more ambiguous and politicised than it may appear and, although it can be used as a basis to reclaim the value of socially reproductive work, its transformative potential hinges on the possibility to encompass the most precarious and transnational dimensions of (re)productio

Desafios para Moçambique, 2022

Este número do Desafios para Moçambique acontece quando o País enfrenta enormes desafios - a guerra em Cabo Delgado, com alguns sinais de expansão para outras províncias; os projectos de extracção e liquefação do gás da bacia do Rovuma, que concretizam alguns 24 Desafios para Moçambique 2022 Introdução dos maiores desafios da história económica de Moçambique; os efeitos prolongados da crise global, da explosão e implosão da bolha económica, de que a crise da dívida soberana foi uma manifestação, e as sequelas sociais e económicas da pandemia da covid-19. Estes desafios e crises estimularam pesquisa e resultaram em lições, algumas das quais são desenvolvidas nesta edição. Recentemente terminou, em Maputo, o julgamento de alguns dos agentes do Estado e agentes privados envolvidos nas transacções financeiras internacionais ilícitas que resultaram nas dívidas odiosas. O que já era claro antes - que estas transacções ilícitas são o reflexo de dinâmicas mais gerais de expropriação, privatização e financeirização do Estado para acumulação privada de capital, mesmo que tal seja feito com pesados custos sociais - mais claro, se era possível, ficou. A hipótese de que o processo legal, que tivemos a oportunidade de acompanhar durante cerca de um ano e meio, apenas tocava nos receptores de comissões de corrupção e de tráfico de influências, executores do grande calote contra o erário público, foi confirmada.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Work in agro-industry and the social reproduction of labour in Mozambique: contradictions in the current accumulation system

This article discusses the tensions between job creation and employment quality in the system of accumulation in Mozambique. Addressing job quality is central because Mozambique’s economic structure has mostly failed to generate stable work and pay and dignified working conditions. However, this is neglected in the mainstream view of labour markets, which is dominated by dualisms and limited by its blind spot regarding social reproduction. The authors follow a political economy approach informed by a social reproduction lens and draw on original primary evidence on agro-industries. They argue that low-quality jobs reflect the current mode of organisation of production, in which companies’ profitability depends on access to cheap and disposable labour and relies on workers’ ability to engage in multiple, interdependent paid and unpaid forms of work to sustain themselves. Unless the co-constitutive interrelations between production and reproduction are understood and addressed, the fragmentation of livelihoods will intensify the social system crisis

Essential for what? A global social reproduction view on the re-organisation of work during the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 has shaken a foundational pillar of global capitalism: the organisation of work. A pivotal dimension of such re-organisation has been the classification of work as essential or not. This article explores the concept of essential work using a global feminist social reproduction perspective. We show that the meaning of essential work is more ambiguous and politicised than it may appear and, although it can be used as a basis to reclaim the value of socially reproductive work, its transformative potential hinges on the possibility to encompass the most precarious and transnational dimensions of (re)production