Kasmir
Biographic Data
| ID | 5176 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kasmir |
| FAMILY NAME | Kasmir |
| SIGNATURE | KASMIR |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hofstra University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5488-3118 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 152 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Simultaneous disruptions: Forms of livelihood, fragmentation of classes, and social labor in the twenty-first century
Uneven and combined development in anthropology
In this brief essay, we suggest that contemporary efforts at reworking Leon Trotsky's theory of uneven and combined development (UCD) are enriched by an historical ethnographic lens focused on "real people doing real things," which grounds and de-fetishizes the abstractions of capitalist development. We sketch three ways to develop UCD to better apprehend contemporary capitalism: tracing the effects of unevenness and combination within social for…
On difference and combination: Politics and social movement organizations in a Pennsylvania rust-belt region
This article draws on fieldwork in the majority Latinx (gender-neutral Latinos/as) rust-belt city of Reading and the majority white suburbs and rural towns of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States, where three social movement groups are forging a left/liberal alignment. A history of uneven economic and social development in Reading/Berks underlies current divisions that confront the social movement organizations. Scholars grapple with bringin…
Politics, internationalism, and ethnography: Reflections on June Nash’s We Eat the Mines and The Mines Eat Us
The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor
"The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor offers a cross-cultural examination of labor around the world and presents the breadth of a growing and vital subfield of anthropology. As we enter a new crisis-ridden age, some laboring people are protected, while others face impoverishment and death, as they work in unsafe conditions, migrate to gain livelihoods, languish in the unwaged sector, and become targets of law enforcement. The contr…
The “naming of things”: US labor in the time of Covid-19
Left Coalition-Building in a Changing Region: A View from Reading and Berks County
The Anthropology of Labor
In the final decades of the 20th century, market reforms in China and India, post-socialist transitions in Eastern Europe, deindustrialization of historic centers of factory production, and the international project of neoliberalization ushered billions of people worldwide into a range of labor relations—waged and unwaged, relatively stable and wholly insecure, formal and informal, bonded and free. The heterogeneity and fragmentation of these lab…
Divisions of labor and the relations among them: Some thoughts on “uneven and combined” theory and politics
The “urgent anthropology” of labor unions
Industrial Workers
For much of the twentieth century, the study of industrial workers was not central to the disciplinary project of anthropology. However, in the wake of the 1973 oil shock and world economic crisis, anthropologists increasingly undertook research in industrial settings. This turn coincided with the liberalization of national economies, new international trade agreements, and the movement of capital out of historic centers to new industrial zones i…
On the heterogeneity of the US working class
Precarity
Precarity emerged as a central concern in scholarly research and writing in the twenty-first century, partly in response to political mobilizations against unemployment and social exclusion. Together with related concepts—such as precarious, precariousness, precaritization and ‘the precariat’—precarity refers to the fact that much of the world’s population lacks stable work and steady incomes. Informal, temporary, or contingent work is the predom…
No Smooth Surfaces: The Anthropology of Unevenness and Combination
Although concerns about complexity and multiplicity have long been at the core of ethnographic research, this article moves beyond such descriptive terms and develops a theoretically engaged concept of unevenness and combination. We argue that unevenness is not just the outcome of capitalist development; it is politically momentous. Unevenness emerges from the struggle between capital and labor and from the historically specific ways that they co…
History, politics, space, labor: On unevenness as an anthropological concept
The Mondragon Cooperatives and Global Capitalism: A Critical Analysis
Alternatives to capitalism and working-class struggle: A comment on Alice Bryer’s “the politics of the social economy”
Toward an Anthropology of Labor
W.E.B. Du Bois’s Darkwater and an anti-colonial, internationalist anthropology
Forum: Solidarity
Dispossession and the Anthropology of Labor
■ This article develops an approach to the anthropology of labor that seeks to transcend the North/South and working class/poor oppositions that have long framed our understanding of social inequality. Drawing upon David Harvey's understanding of the ways in which capitalism always creates its own Other through dispossession, as well as historical case studies of struggles against dispossession, we emphasize the mutability of class relations in b…
Society for the Anthropology of Work
Coding Culture: Bangalore's Software Industry
Society for the Anthropology of Work
Rethinking the Anthropology of Social Class
Dispossession and the Anthropology of Labor
■ This article develops an approach to the anthropology of labor that seeks to transcend the North/South and working class/poor oppositions that have long framed our understanding of social inequality. Drawing upon David Harvey's understanding of the ways in which capitalism always creates its own Other through dispossession, as well as historical case studies of struggles against dispossession, we emphasize the mutability of class relations in b…
No Smooth Surfaces: The Anthropology of Unevenness and Combination
Although concerns about complexity and multiplicity have long been at the core of ethnographic research, this article moves beyond such descriptive terms and develops a theoretically engaged concept of unevenness and combination. We argue that unevenness is not just the outcome of capitalist development; it is politically momentous. Unevenness emerges from the struggle between capital and labor and from the historically specific ways that they co…
Precarity
Precarity emerged as a central concern in scholarly research and writing in the twenty-first century, partly in response to political mobilizations against unemployment and social exclusion. Together with related concepts—such as precarious, precariousness, precaritization and ‘the precariat’—precarity refers to the fact that much of the world’s population lacks stable work and steady incomes. Informal, temporary, or contingent work is the predom…
The Mondragón Model as Post-Fordist Discourse: Considerations on the Production of Post-Fordism
This article is intended as a contribution to the ethnography of contemporary capitalism. I analyze the case of the Mondragón cooperative model and consider what its international fame tells us about the regime of post-Fordism. I explore the constitution of the Mondragón model through the singular discourse of labor-management cooperation. I show how the model is produced by the discursive practices of omission and decontextualization. Mondragón …
Corporation, Self, and Enterprise at the Saturn Automobile Plant
The Mondragon Cooperatives and Global Capitalism: A Critical Analysis
Toward an Anthropology of Labor
Rethinking the Anthropology of Social Class
Stickiń to the Unioń: Worker Ownership from a Working Class Perspective
Uneven and combined development in anthropology
In this brief essay, we suggest that contemporary efforts at reworking Leon Trotsky's theory of uneven and combined development (UCD) are enriched by an historical ethnographic lens focused on "real people doing real things," which grounds and de-fetishizes the abstractions of capitalist development. We sketch three ways to develop UCD to better apprehend contemporary capitalism: tracing the effects of unevenness and combination within social for…
Politics, internationalism, and ethnography: Reflections on June Nash’s We Eat the Mines and The Mines Eat Us
Women's Work and Women's Work Cultures
Women's Work and Women's Work Cultures
Stickiń to the Unioń: Worker Ownership from a Working Class Perspective
The Myth of Mondragon: Cooperatives, Politics, and Working-Class Life in a Basque Town
Utopia in Zion: The Israeli Experience with Worker Cooperatives
The Mondragón Model as Post-Fordist Discourse: Considerations on the Production of Post-Fordism
This article is intended as a contribution to the ethnography of contemporary capitalism. I analyze the case of the Mondragón cooperative model and consider what its international fame tells us about the regime of post-Fordism. I explore the constitution of the Mondragón model through the singular discourse of labor-management cooperation. I show how the model is produced by the discursive practices of omission and decontextualization. Mondragón …
Introduction to Sharryn Kasmir's and Ara Wilson's Articles
Corporation, Self, and Enterprise at the Saturn Automobile Plant
"More Basque than You!": Class, Youth, and Identity in an Industrial Basque Town
In this article, I argue that those of us who study nationalism need to "think class as we think the nation," and I suggest a framework for exploring the relationship between class and national identities and projects. I present the case of Basque nationalism and examine how different visions of the nation either include or exclude non-Basque, working-class immigrants. I show how during the economic crisis of the 1980s to early 1990s, young peopl…
Society for the Anthropology of Work
Rethinking the Anthropology of Social Class
Society for the Anthropology of Work
Coding Culture: Bangalore's Software Industry
W.E.B. Du Bois’s Darkwater and an anti-colonial, internationalist anthropology
Forum: Solidarity
Dispossession and the Anthropology of Labor
■ This article develops an approach to the anthropology of labor that seeks to transcend the North/South and working class/poor oppositions that have long framed our understanding of social inequality. Drawing upon David Harvey's understanding of the ways in which capitalism always creates its own Other through dispossession, as well as historical case studies of struggles against dispossession, we emphasize the mutability of class relations in b…
Toward an Anthropology of Labor
Alternatives to capitalism and working-class struggle: A comment on Alice Bryer’s “the politics of the social economy”
History, politics, space, labor: On unevenness as an anthropological concept
The Mondragon Cooperatives and Global Capitalism: A Critical Analysis
Industrial Workers
For much of the twentieth century, the study of industrial workers was not central to the disciplinary project of anthropology. However, in the wake of the 1973 oil shock and world economic crisis, anthropologists increasingly undertook research in industrial settings. This turn coincided with the liberalization of national economies, new international trade agreements, and the movement of capital out of historic centers to new industrial zones i…
On the heterogeneity of the US working class
Precarity
Precarity emerged as a central concern in scholarly research and writing in the twenty-first century, partly in response to political mobilizations against unemployment and social exclusion. Together with related concepts—such as precarious, precariousness, precaritization and ‘the precariat’—precarity refers to the fact that much of the world’s population lacks stable work and steady incomes. Informal, temporary, or contingent work is the predom…
No Smooth Surfaces: The Anthropology of Unevenness and Combination
Although concerns about complexity and multiplicity have long been at the core of ethnographic research, this article moves beyond such descriptive terms and develops a theoretically engaged concept of unevenness and combination. We argue that unevenness is not just the outcome of capitalist development; it is politically momentous. Unevenness emerges from the struggle between capital and labor and from the historically specific ways that they co…
The Anthropology of Labor
In the final decades of the 20th century, market reforms in China and India, post-socialist transitions in Eastern Europe, deindustrialization of historic centers of factory production, and the international project of neoliberalization ushered billions of people worldwide into a range of labor relations—waged and unwaged, relatively stable and wholly insecure, formal and informal, bonded and free. The heterogeneity and fragmentation of these lab…
Divisions of labor and the relations among them: Some thoughts on “uneven and combined” theory and politics
Sociology (28 works) · Political science (22 works) · Law (19 works) · Politics (17 works) · Political Economy and Marxism (12 works) · Anthropology (11 works) · Capitalism (8 works) · Economics (8 works) · History (8 works) · Political economy (8 works)