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

欧洲联盟的中欧/东欧（CEE）成员国与世界经济的一体化给该区域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对全球化电子产品生产进行了批判性分析；中欧和东欧新兴的劳动力迁移，以及在欧盟各地流动的超流动性工人的形成；包括工作机构在内的不稳定和中介就业关系的当代转变；不断变化的制度和社会再生产关系。来自东欧国家（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）的移民工人在该国出口导向型电子制造部门的装配线上工作，他们在这些过程中处于特别尖锐的境地。这些工人与工作机构签订临时合同，住在雇主提供的工人宿舍里，他们是多民族、多性别和复杂种族化的劳动力，他们的日常生活和社会再生产在劳动控制机制内直接动员起来。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，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。在此过程中，该研究将社会再生产发展为一个批判性的分析镜头，展示了女权主义对经济地理学、劳动制度分析和劳动力地理学以及批判性移民研究的重要贡献。该研究探讨了农民工在工作之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，同时也详细介绍了由不同的农民工设计的日常和空间策略来管理不稳定性。从这个重点，我已经能够确定关键的见解和战略，以改善农民工的就业和社会再生产的条件。该研究为工会、劳工/移民权利非政府组织和寻求解决不稳定移民劳工剥削问题的政策制定者做出了根本性的重要贡献。在Adrian Smith教授的专业指导下，该奖学金将使我能够实现以下四个关键目标：1 .通过在主要地理期刊上发表一系列高质量的论文，建立博士研究成果的跟踪记录，并传播博士研究成果。在本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，包括资助申请和出版。这将通过组织一个关于女权主义贡献和经济地理学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；与捷克的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。这包括与电子表和其他工会和非政府组织合作，开展活动，建设有效宣传劳工和移徙者权利的能力。奖学金活动的目的是为将来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事业，开发一个新的研究项目，研究中欧东欧生产、劳动力、移民和社会再生产的有争议的地理位置。我将完成一份图书项目提案，在奖学金结束前获得一份图书合同，并向Leverhulme早期职业奖学金和英国科学院早期职业研究计划提交博士后研究资金申请。

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.