ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the theoretical framework underlying the arguments presented in the book. It draws primarily on critical engagements with Marx’s discussions of primitive accumulation and Gramscian conceptions of the political relations of force and subalternity. Marx’s discussions of primitive accumulation centre on the historical processes through which proletarian ‘free’ labour is formed. Importantly, Marx’s notes point to fluid and ambiguous, yet politically highly salient, boundaries between normalized and irregular modes of work. While Marx does usefully point to the political character of these boundaries, however, he does not offer much in the way of a substantive framework for thinking through the patterns of mobilization and contestation through which these processes of differentiation take place. Accordingly, I draw on Gramsci’s conception of the political relations of force and the subaltern to highlight the ways in which the regulatory establishment of these boundaries is shaped by complex intersections between a diversity of different social forces and sites of political authority arranged across scales.
