Mobility, Value, and Exploitation in the Case of Agricultural Labor in Southern Italy
A Critical Legal Perspective on Social Reproduction Regimes across Borders
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24229201 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carlo Caprioglio (Università degli studi di Bari Aldo Moro , Piazza Umberto I , Bari 70121), Enrica Rigo (Università degli studi Roma Tre , Via Ostiense 161 , Roma 00154) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 273-296 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Politics International Studies in Gender State & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1072-4745 • E-ISSN: 1468-2893 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/sp/jxaf073 |
| OpenAlex | W7202299396 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 28 |
The article provides a critical legal analysis of the role of borders in coercively multiplying and imposing racialized regimes of life reproduction on migrants. It moves from an account of the transformation of the southern border of the European Union over the last two decades, showing that beyond the distinction between forced and economic migration, what is at stake is the control over life-making processes of migrants across borders. The “refugeezation of the workforce” provides the theoretical lens through which to analyze how the modes of life reproduction imposed on migrant workers in the Italian agriculture function for capitalist accumulation. Through the lens of social reproduction, the article then critically addresses the way in which the law incorporates labor exploitation. The concluding section argues that migrants’ claims for freedom of movement should be understood as struggles to reclaim a share in the value and power over one’s life.
agricultural labor · capitalist accumulation · Freedom of movement · labor exploitation · Migrant workers · Social reproduction · Southern Italy · European Law and Migration · Human Rights and Immigration · Italian Social Issues and Migration
Invisible Borders
Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor
Feminist Political Economy in Canada and the Politics of Social Reproduction
Capitalism as World-Ecology
Rethinking Racial Capitalism
Of value, measurement and social reproduction
The prism of new mobilities. The mobility trajectories of refugees and asylum seekers outside the Italian reception system
The ‘human’ as referent object
Reproductions
Ghetto tomatoes’ and ‘taxi drivers’
Contradictions of Capital and Care
The Re(production) of Restless Bodies
Relative surplus populations and the crises of contemporary capitalism
Bordering the surplus population across the Mediterranean
Pluralizing social reproduction approaches
Security and Immigration
The safety/security nexus and the humanitarianisation of border enforcement
After entry
Hotspots and the geographies of humanitarianism
Agricultural Day Laborers in Southern Italy
We Closed the Ports to Protect Refugees.' Hygienic Borders and Deterrence Humanitarianism during Covid-19
| Highly cited | No |
|---|