ABSTRACT

Seeking to extend our understanding of the contemporary global political economy, this book provides an important and original introduction to the current theoretical debates about social reproduction and argues for the necessity of linking social reproduction to specific contexts of power and production.

It illustrates the analytic value of the concept of social reproduction through a series of case studies that examine the implications of how labor power is reproduced and how lives outside of work are lived. The issues examined in countries including the Ukraine, Chile, Spain, Nepal, India and Indonesia, consist of:

  • Human trafficking and sex work
  • Women and work
  • Migration, labor and gender inequality
  • Micro-credit programs and investing in women
  • Health, biological reproduction and assisted reproductive technologies

The book lends a unique perspective to the understandings of transformation in the global political economy precisely because of its simultaneous focus on the caring and provisioning of the everyday and its relationships to policies and decisions made at the national and international levels of both formal and informal institutions.

With its multi-disciplinary approach, this book will be indispensable to students and scholars of International Political Economy, Development Studies, Gender or Women’s Studies, International Studies, Globalization and International Relations.

chapter |15 pages

Introduction

Social reproduction and global transformations – from the everyday to the global

part I|36 pages

Social reproduction and economic governance

chapter 2|19 pages

Towards globalization with a human face

Engendering policy coherence for development

part II|37 pages

Social reproduction and marketization

chapter 3|17 pages

Global integration of subsistence economies and women's empowerment

An experience from Nepal

chapter 4|18 pages

Limits to empowerment

Women in microcredit programs, south India

part III|49 pages

Social reproduction and transnational migrations

chapter 5|15 pages

States, work, and social reproduction through the lens of migrant experience

Ecuadorian domestic workers in Madrid

chapter 6|14 pages

Managing migration

Reproducing gendered insecurity at the Indonesian border

chapter 7|18 pages

Human trafficking as the shadow of globalization

A new challenge for Ukraine

part IV|29 pages

Social reproduction, health, and biological reproduction

chapter 8|16 pages

Reproduction, re-reform and the reconfigured state

Feminists and neoliberal health reforms in Chile