Migrant Workers and Dormitory Labour Regimes: Social Reproduction, Social Difference and Temporalities of Labour

欧洲联盟的中东欧成员国融入世界经济给该地区的工作条件和工人的社会再生产带来了重大挑战。我在捷克共和国的博士研究提出了对全球化电子产品生产的批判性分析;中欧和东欧新兴的劳动力迁移和在欧盟各地移动的超流动工人的形成;不稳定和中介就业关系的当代转型，包括工作机构;不断变化的制度和社会再生产关系。来自欧盟东部国家（斯洛伐克、保加利亚、罗马尼亚）和非欧盟国家（乌克兰、越南、蒙古）的移徙工人在该国面向出口的电子制造部门的装配线上工作，他们处于这些过程的特别尖锐的一端。这些工人以临时合同受雇于工作机构，住在雇主提供的工人宿舍里，他们是一个多民族、多性别和复杂种族化的劳动力队伍，他们的日常生活和社会再生产直接在劳工控制机制内调动起来。在研究工人宿舍和临时工作机构时，我对这种社会转型提供了一种独特的民族志观点，这种社会转型将主观和生活经验与全球化，即时电子产品生产和随之而来的工作制度的地理联系起来。在这样做的过程中，研究发展社会再生产作为一个关键的分析透镜，提出重要的女权主义的贡献，经济地理学，劳动制度分析和劳动地理学，和关键的移民研究。该研究探讨了农民工工作以外的生活的社会组织如何有助于他们作为“一次性”劳动主体的生产，同时也提供了详细的知识，由差异化的农民工设计的日常和空间策略来管理不稳定性。从这一重点出发，我能够确定改善农民工就业和社会再生产条件的关键见解和战略。这项研究为工会、劳工/移民权利非政府组织和寻求解决剥削不稳定移民劳工问题的政策制定者做出了根本性的重要贡献。在阿德里安·史密斯教授的专家指导下，该奖学金将使我能够实现以下四个关键目标：1.通过在领先的地理杂志上发表一系列高质量的出版物，建立跟踪记录并传播博士研究成果。在学科内建立我的研究，并发展学术网络，为未来的合作创造机会，包括赠款申请和出版物。这将通过在QMUL组织关于女权主义贡献和经济地理方法的研讨会来实现;在RGS-IBG 2021会议上组织关于劳动力迁移和中东欧的会议;与捷克学者和社会研究人员进行知识交流。将博士研究成果传播给非学术受众，以产生更广泛的社会影响，使社区和利益相关者受益。这包括与电子观察和其他工会和非政府组织联系人合作，开展活动，建设有效宣传劳工和移民权利的能力。研究金活动旨在为今后的社会影响建立途径。通过利用奖学金时间和拟议的活动来发展我未来的研究生涯，以开发一个新的研究计划，研究中东欧有争议的生产，劳动力，移民和社会再生产地理。我将完成一本书的项目建议书，确保由奖学金结束的图书合同，并提交博士后研究经费申请的Leverhulme早期职业奖学金和英国科学院早期职业研究计划。

Integration of the Central / East European (CEE) member states of the European Union into the world economy has brought major challenges for working conditions and workers' social reproduction in the region. My PhD research in the Czech Republic presents critical analysis of globalised electronics production; emerging labour migration in CEE and the formation of hyper-mobile workers moving across the EU; contemporary transformations in precarious and intermediated employment relations including work agencies; changing regimes and relations of social reproduction. Migrant workers, from eastern-EU countries (Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania) and non-EU countries (Ukraine, Vietnam, Mongolia) who staff the assembly lines of the country's export-oriented electronics manufacturing sector, are at the particularly sharp end of these processes. Employed on temporary contracts by work agencies, and housed in employer-provided worker dormitories, these workers present a multi-national, multi-gendered and complexly racialized workforce, whose everyday life and social reproduction is directly mobilised within mechanisms of labour control. In researching worker dormitories and temporary work agencies, I offer a unique ethnographic view onto this social transformation, which connects subjective and lived experiences to the geographies of globalised, just-in-time electronics production and attendant regimes of work. In doing so, the research develops social reproduction as a critical analytic lens, presenting vital feminist contributions to economic geography, labour regime analysis and labour geographies, and critical migration studies. The research explores how the social organisation of migrant workers' life beyond work contributes to their production as 'disposable' labouring subjects, whilst also presenting detailed knowledge the everyday and spatial strategies devised by differentiated migrant workers to manage precarity. From this focus I have been able to identify key insights and strategies for improving the conditions of migrant workers' employment and social reproduction. The research presents a fundamentally important contribution for trade unions, labour/migrant rights NGOs, and policy makers seeking to tackle exploitation of precarious migrant labour.With the expert mentorship of Professor Adrian Smith, the Fellowship would allow me to achieve the following four key objectives:1. Establish track record and disseminate PhD research findings through a series of high-quality publications in leading geography journals.2. Establish my research within the discipline and develop academic networks towards creating opportunities for future collaboration, including grant applications and publications. This will be achieved through organisation of a workshop on feminist contributions and approaches to economic geography at QMUL; organisation of a conference session on labour migration and CEE at the RGS-IBG 2021 conference; and knowledge exchange with scholars and social researchers in the Czech Republic.3. Disseminate PhD research findings to non-academic audiences for broader social impact with the aim of benefitting communities and stakeholders. This includes working in collaboration with Electronics Watch and other trade union and NGO contacts to undertake activities building capacity for effective campaigning on labour and migrant rights. The fellowship activities are designed to establish pathways for future social impact.4. Develop my future research career by using the fellowship time and proposed activities to develop a new research program examining the contested geographies of production, labour, migration and social reproduction in Central-Eastern Europe. I will finalised a book project proposal, securing a book contract by the end of the fellowship, and submit postdoctoral research funding applications to the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship and British Academy Early Career Research schemes.