The Precarious Migrant Worker

The Socialization of Precarity

Panos Theodoropoulos

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Hardback

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English

Polity Press
01 May 2025

Poverty & unemployment; Migration, immigration & emigration; Sociology; Industrial relations & safety

Migrant workers in the West are at the frontline of the precarious condition that is coming to dominate social and economic life in neoliberal societies. Yet despite the highly insecure and exploitative working conditions they routinely face, labour mobilizations by precarious workers are rare.

In this immersive portrait of the daily realities of precarious migrant labour, Panos Theodoropoulos found work in Glasgow’s warehouses, factories and kitchens to uncover the ways that precarity is lived and contested. Connecting the realms of structure, subjectivity and culture, his analysis shows that precarity not only dictates workers’ labour conditions, but socializes them in an individualist, survival-oriented struggle that erodes solidarities and enforces its own neoliberal logic. Crucially, however, precarity and the wider neoliberal culture are unable to erase workers’ material awareness and experience of class injustice. This points to the possibility of forging strong connections and methods of resistance, firmly grounded in the lives and communities of precarious workers.

Blending interviews, ethnographic notes and social theory, The Precarious Migrant Worker offers a unique glimpse into our increasingly precarious social reality and will be a valuable resource for scholars, students and activists interested in issues of migration, precarity and resistance.

By: Panos Theodoropoulos
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 158mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781509564989
ISBN 10: 1509564985
Pages: 224
Publication Date: 01 May 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction Chapter 1: ‘We Were Always Migrants’ Chapter 2: The Precarious Condition Chapter 3: The Socialization of Precarity Chapter 4: The Precarious Migrant Subject Chapter 5: Solidarities and Resistances Conclusion: Towards Community Embeddedness

Panos Theodoropoulos is a sociologist affiliated with the University of Glasgow, and co-founder of the radical theory platform Interregnum.

Reviews for The Precarious Migrant Worker: The Socialization of Precarity

""This engaging ethnography of low-wage migrants highlights the contradiction between workers’ acute consciousness of exploitation and the conspicuous absence of unions or social movements in their communities. Against this bleak backdrop, Theodoropoulos dissects the logic of migrants’ reliance on individualistic survival strategies rather than collective mobilization."" Ruth Milkman, City University of New York Graduate Center and former President of the American Sociological Association