Lecture | The Labouring Subject of Refugee EconomiesThe Labouring Subject of Refugee Economies
演講 ｜ 難民經濟中的勞動主體
Date and Time: Wednesday, March 11, 2026, from 13:30 to 15:30, Taipei Time (GMT+8)
Venue: Room 207, College of Hakka Studies, Liujia Campus, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.
Moderator and Discussant: Mei-Lin Pan (Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan)
Online Link: https://meet.google.com/gjo-gicw-hdg
Synopsis
Most writings on refugee economy or the immigrant economy refer to changes in the immigrant labour absorption policies of the Western governments. In these writings the refugee economy or the immigrant economy never features directly; refugees are seen as economic actors in the market. But we do not get a full picture of why capitalism in late twentieth or early twenty first century needs these refugee or immigrant labour as economic actors. The organic link between the immigrant as an economic actor and the global capitalist economy seems to escape the analysis in these writings. Yet, if immigration policies produce precarious labour, this has general significance for the task of theorising the migrant as living labour. The question of the production of living labour is important because it puts in a critical perspective the necessity of the states and the international regime of protection to synchronise the economic and the political strategies of protection. Yet the disjuncture between the two strategies of protection is not only typical of the postcolonial parts of the globe, the disjuncture is evident in the developed countries. Globally, one can say, capital sets in motion movements of labour within a specific field of force that dictates how and why migrant labour is to be harnessed, disciplined, and governed (for instance the dominant presence of immigrant labour in logistics, health care, agriculture, etc.), and that shapes the links between “strategies” (that control migrants once they are in motion) and the mechanisms that set these movements in motion.
Organizer
International Center for Cultural Studies (ICCS), National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University
- Subproject I: The Geopolitics and Cultural Economy of Societal Relations in a New Greater China (Convener: Allen Chun)
- Subproject II: The Chip Era and Digital Governance (Convener: Joyce C.H. Liu)
- Subproject III: Migration, Unequal Citizens, and Critical Legal Studies (Convener: Joyce C.H. Liu, Yu-Fan Chiu, Mei-Lin Pan)
- ICSSR-NSTC Project (2025-2027): China’s Digital Silk Road and Chip-Based Geopolitics: A Critical Analytical Study from the Indo-Taiwan Perspective
Funding Source
Higher Education Sprout Project, Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan