Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Production of "South-South" Capitalist Labor Relations

发展中国家的外国商业和投资活动不再完全由美国和英国等全球北方传统核心国家拥有和管理。越来越多的南半球国家走在了前列。例如，中国和印度一直站在撒哈拉以南非洲商业活动的前沿。这些投资为贫穷国家创造了必要的就业机会，但也引发了有关劳工做法的争议。出现的一个问题是，国家和国际劳工法规是否被忽视，在给企业带来不公平优势的同时，也让工人成为受害者。然而，令人惊讶的是，人们对工人和外国主管实际参与的工作场所的情况知之甚少。该奖项支持的研究将有助于填补这一知识空白。这项研究符合美国的国家利益，因为美国政府和投资者需要知道，他们是在公平的竞争环境中竞争。更好地理解决定美国对外援助投资有效性的背景也是至关重要的。这项为期14个月的人种学实证研究将由加州大学戴维斯分校人类学博士生Justin L.Haruyama在詹姆斯·H·史密斯博士的指导下进行。这项研究将在赞比亚南部由中国人运营的两座煤矿中进行：一座由一家中国国有企业运营，另一座由五个中国兄弟私人拥有。这两家煤矿主要从中国那里招聘经理，同时只从赞比亚和非洲邻国招聘普通工人。这项研究将考察来自不同种族、语言和文化背景的矿工如何相互理解和影响。这将阐明更广泛的社会后果，以及围绕煤炭开采的日常遭遇中资本主义的转型。这位研究人员还将密切关注历史经验，因为初步研究表明，来自赞比亚和中国的参与者与殖民主义、社会主义和新自由主义的有时令人痛苦的遭遇，在今天他们在矿山的行动和话语中继续产生深刻的反响。将通过混合方法收集数据，包括档案研究、参与者观察、人口普查和结构化调查访谈以及收集生活史。这项研究的结果将加深人们对当代国际资本主义投资如何影响普通人的生活，以及它们如何重塑许多非洲国家的商业环境和资本主义文化的理解。

Foreign commercial and investment activities in developing countries are no longer exclusively owned and managed by traditional core countries of the Global North, such as the United States and Britain. Increasingly, countries of the Global South are leading the way. For example, China and India have been at the forefront of commercial activities in sub-Saharan Africa. These investments have generated needed jobs for poor countries but they also have produced controversies about labor practices. One question that has arisen is whether national and international labor codes are being ignored to give businesses unfair advantages while also victimizing workers. However, surprisingly little is known about how the situation plays out on the ground, at the work sites where workers and foreign supervisors actually engage. The research supported by this award will help to fill this knowledge gap. This research is in the United States' national interest because the U.S. government and investors need to know that they are playing on a level playing field. It also is essential to better understand the contexts that determine the effectiveness of U.S. foreign aid investments.This fourteen month empirical ethnographic study will be carried out by University of California, Davis, anthropology doctoral student, Justin L. Haruyama, under the supervision of Dr. James H. Smith. The research will be conducted in two Chinese-operated coal mines in southern Zambia: one operated by a Chinese state-owned enterprise and the other privately owned by five Chinese brothers. Both of these mines hire managers primarily from China while recruiting their ordinary workforces exclusively from Zambia and neighboring African countries. The research will examine how actors from different racial, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds at the mines understand and affect each other. This will illuminate the broader social consequences and capitalist transformations at work in everyday encounters around the extraction of coal. The researcher will also pay close attention to historical experience, as preliminary research has shown that the sometimes-traumatic encounters with colonialism, socialism, and neoliberalism experienced by participants from both Zambia and China continue to have profound reverberations in their actions and discourses at the mines today. Data will be collected through a mixed-methods approach, including archival research, participant observation, census and structured survey interviews, and the collection of life histories. Results from this research will improve understanding of how contemporary international capitalist investments are affecting the lives of ordinary people, and how they are reshaping business environments and capitalist culture in many African countries.