At the beginning of Provincializing Europe, Dipesh Chakrabarty explains that the Europe he seeks to provincialize or de-centre is an 'imaginary figure‘ that remains deeply embedded in 'clichés and shorthand forms‘. Both social sciences and political discourses of development and citizenship continue to be shaped by these. Among these clichés a certain idea of labour plays a crucial epistemic and political role. Both social and economic theory and the theory and politics of citizenship have taken for granted that wage labour is the 'normal labour relation‘ within capitalism, the homogeneous legal scheme that articulates social conflict and integration as well as access to real citizenship. The situation has radically changed nowadays: while wage labour is declining as a standard relation even in Europe and in the 'West‘, the heterogeneity of labour relations that has characterized and characterizes colonial and postcolonial societies paradoxically seems to be more adequate to grasp the history and present of global capitalism. Drawing on a discussion of the second chapter of Provincializing Europe (‘The Two Histories of Capital‘) and on recent developments in postcolonial studies and 'global labour history‘, this article will attempt to outline a theory of postcolonial capitalism and of the lines of conflict and antagonism that crisscross it.
How many histories of labour? Towards a theory of postcolonial capitalism
MEZZADRA, SANDRO
2011
Abstract
At the beginning of Provincializing Europe, Dipesh Chakrabarty explains that the Europe he seeks to provincialize or de-centre is an 'imaginary figure‘ that remains deeply embedded in 'clichés and shorthand forms‘. Both social sciences and political discourses of development and citizenship continue to be shaped by these. Among these clichés a certain idea of labour plays a crucial epistemic and political role. Both social and economic theory and the theory and politics of citizenship have taken for granted that wage labour is the 'normal labour relation‘ within capitalism, the homogeneous legal scheme that articulates social conflict and integration as well as access to real citizenship. The situation has radically changed nowadays: while wage labour is declining as a standard relation even in Europe and in the 'West‘, the heterogeneity of labour relations that has characterized and characterizes colonial and postcolonial societies paradoxically seems to be more adequate to grasp the history and present of global capitalism. Drawing on a discussion of the second chapter of Provincializing Europe (‘The Two Histories of Capital‘) and on recent developments in postcolonial studies and 'global labour history‘, this article will attempt to outline a theory of postcolonial capitalism and of the lines of conflict and antagonism that crisscross it.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
