Migrations have accompanied capitalism since its inception. Until now, cross-border transfers of labour may be a source of great profits and a form of violent management of subordinated classes, they constitute political capital for the extreme right-wing and a pretext for the expansion of new forms of control and discipline. At the same time, however, they create a space for the new forms of solidarity and a struggle for workers’ subjectivity. On the basis of the situation in Great Britain, Jane Hardy looks at examples of self-organization of migrant workforce and alliances against ethnic, cultural and civic divisions in the name of the recovery of political rights and aspirations that modern capitalism so fiercely fights.
The lecture was part of the Atlas of Planetary Violence programme, organised by Biennale Warszawa at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, and the Counter-Labour project curated by Przemysław Wielgosz. Moderation: Magda Malinowska.
Jane Hardy was Professor of Political Economy at the University of Hertfordshire. She specialises in the study of the transformation of post-communist economies and societies in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Poland. She has written, among others, Restructuring Krakow: Desperately Seeking Capitalism (1996 with Al Rainnie). Her book Poland’s New Capitalism (2007) has been published in Poland.
