The book was translated into Italian as Confini e frontiere: La moltiplicazione del lavoro nel mondo globale by Il Mulino in 2014 and into Spanish as La frontera como método. O la multiplicación del trabajo by the Buenos Aires-based publisher Tinta Limon. The Italian translation has been reviewed by philosopher Roberto Esposito in Italy’s largest circulation newspaper, La Repubblica, and by the political thinker Antonio Negri in Il Manifesto. The original edition in English had 1400 copies sold in first year, special review forum in Dialogues in Human Geography, 636 Google Scholar citations (February 2017) and around 20 reviews (among other journals in "International Journal of Urban and Regional Research", "Geographical Review", "Choice", "City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action", "Krisis. Journal for Contemporary Philosophy", "Historical Materialism", "Migration Studies", "Polar", "Political Studies Review", "Radical Philosophy", "London Review of International Law", "Journal of Multicultural Discourses", "Labour/Le Travail", and "Geopolitics".
The relevance of borders and borderlands to an understanding of current globalization processes has been increasingly recognized in the last decade. As Étienne Balibar has written, ‘Whereas traditionally, and in conformity with both their juridical definition and “cartographical” representation as incorporated in national memory, they should be at the edge of the territory, marking the point where it ends, it seems that borders and the institutional practices corresponding to them have been transported into the middle of political space’. Consequently, the border has not only become a crucial site of empirical and theoretical investigation in a number of disciplines. It has also become a site of intensified artistic and political investment. The purpose of this book is twofold. On the one hand, it explores the material conditions that underlie the production of many different kinds of borders (conceptual, geographical, political, cultural, anthropological, and so on) to map the proliferation of borders in the world today. On the other hand, it critically analyzes the role played by this proliferation of borders in the restructuring of labor relations and processes. Building upon and questioning images of an international division of labor, the book argues that the division and redivision of global space by borders not only explodes established nation-state geographies but also forces seemingly discrete territories and actors into unexpected connections that facilitate processes of production and labor exploitation. To track and analyze these processes and links, we introduce the concept of the multiplication of labor. This describes not only the intensification of the labor process and the tendency for work to colonize life but also the growing complexity that characterizes the constitution of labor markets and relations of hierarchization within and between them. Due to these changes, the subjective positions of both citizens and workers no longer coincide with that of the dyadic figure of the citizen-worker. The multiplication of labor signals the emergence of practices of discipline and control that can be fully explained neither by reference to sovereign power nor by theories of governmentality. But it also registers the production of new forms of subjectivity. There is thus a moment of political potential in the proliferation of borders. The primary contribution of the book is synthetic and critical. There are many recent studies that examine the material transformations to borders in particular geographical sites. Works on the U.S.-Mexico border and the ‘external frontiers’ of the EU have been prominent. Yet there is a lack of serious research that juxtaposes practices of border crossing and border reinforcing across these sites to identify patterns of connection and disconnection. Encompassing the study of the aforementioned borderlands, the text adds considerations of the Israel-Palestine wall, China’s internal borders, the Bengali-Bangladeshi borderland, Australia’s Pacific Solution, present and historical borders in Africa, just to name a few. We are well aware of the many differences in history and geography that shape these situations. Despite these differences, however, we argue that the epistemic perspective provided by the border supplies, in all these cases, a privileged point of entry for the critical analysis of the mutations of capital and labor in the current global transition.
Mezzadra S, Neilson B. (2013). Border as Method, or, The Multiplication of Labor. DURHAM, NC : Duke University Press.
Border as Method, or, The Multiplication of Labor
MEZZADRA, SANDRO;
2013
Abstract
The relevance of borders and borderlands to an understanding of current globalization processes has been increasingly recognized in the last decade. As Étienne Balibar has written, ‘Whereas traditionally, and in conformity with both their juridical definition and “cartographical” representation as incorporated in national memory, they should be at the edge of the territory, marking the point where it ends, it seems that borders and the institutional practices corresponding to them have been transported into the middle of political space’. Consequently, the border has not only become a crucial site of empirical and theoretical investigation in a number of disciplines. It has also become a site of intensified artistic and political investment. The purpose of this book is twofold. On the one hand, it explores the material conditions that underlie the production of many different kinds of borders (conceptual, geographical, political, cultural, anthropological, and so on) to map the proliferation of borders in the world today. On the other hand, it critically analyzes the role played by this proliferation of borders in the restructuring of labor relations and processes. Building upon and questioning images of an international division of labor, the book argues that the division and redivision of global space by borders not only explodes established nation-state geographies but also forces seemingly discrete territories and actors into unexpected connections that facilitate processes of production and labor exploitation. To track and analyze these processes and links, we introduce the concept of the multiplication of labor. This describes not only the intensification of the labor process and the tendency for work to colonize life but also the growing complexity that characterizes the constitution of labor markets and relations of hierarchization within and between them. Due to these changes, the subjective positions of both citizens and workers no longer coincide with that of the dyadic figure of the citizen-worker. The multiplication of labor signals the emergence of practices of discipline and control that can be fully explained neither by reference to sovereign power nor by theories of governmentality. But it also registers the production of new forms of subjectivity. There is thus a moment of political potential in the proliferation of borders. The primary contribution of the book is synthetic and critical. There are many recent studies that examine the material transformations to borders in particular geographical sites. Works on the U.S.-Mexico border and the ‘external frontiers’ of the EU have been prominent. Yet there is a lack of serious research that juxtaposes practices of border crossing and border reinforcing across these sites to identify patterns of connection and disconnection. Encompassing the study of the aforementioned borderlands, the text adds considerations of the Israel-Palestine wall, China’s internal borders, the Bengali-Bangladeshi borderland, Australia’s Pacific Solution, present and historical borders in Africa, just to name a few. We are well aware of the many differences in history and geography that shape these situations. Despite these differences, however, we argue that the epistemic perspective provided by the border supplies, in all these cases, a privileged point of entry for the critical analysis of the mutations of capital and labor in the current global transition.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
