Constructing debt: discursive and material strategies of labour coercion in the U.S. South, 1903-1964
Book chapter
Pizzolato, N. 2024. Constructing debt: discursive and material strategies of labour coercion in the U.S. South, 1903-1964. in: Batista, A., Müller, V. and Peres, C. (ed.) Coercion and Wage Labor: Exploring Work Relations through History and Art UCL Press. pp. 275-300
| Chapter title | Constructing debt: discursive and material strategies of labour coercion in the U.S. South, 1903-1964 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pizzolato, N. |
| Abstract | In this chapter based on archival sources and contemporary accounts drawn from government files, political and civil rights association archives, newspaper articles and memoirs, I discuss how labour coercion was imbricated with conceptual notions and social practices of debt during the twentieth century. I will explore how planters and growers in the US South used debt to attempt to immobilise workers for the length of time that their labour was needed in the fields and to pay them cheaply, or not at all. As we will see, employers used monetary remuneration itself, often assumed to be one of the hallmarks of free labour, to entangle workers in coercive labour practices. The way this happened evolved along the chronology covered by this study, which spans from the first court cases of ‘peonage’ (being compelled to work to pay a debt) in 1903 to the end, in 1964, of the Programa Bracero, which brought to the US heavily indebted workers from Mexico. |
| Sustainable Development Goals | 8 Decent work and economic growth |
| Middlesex University Theme | Creativity, Culture & Enterprise |
| Page range | 275-300 |
| Book title | Coercion and Wage Labor: Exploring Work Relations through History and Art |
| Editors | Batista, A., Müller, V. and Peres, C. |
| Publisher | UCL Press |
| Series | Work Around the World |
| ISBN | |
| Electronic | 9781800085381 |
| Electronic | 9781800085411 |
| Hardcover | 9781800085404 |
| Paperback | 9781800085398 |
| Publication dates | |
| 25 Jan 2024 | |
| Publication process dates | |
| Deposited | 29 Mar 2023 |
| Accepted | 15 Jan 2023 |
| Output status | Published |
| Publisher's version | License File Access Level Open |
| Copyright Statement | This Book Chapter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) Coercion and Wage Labour © 2024 UCL Press |
| Web address (URL) | https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.4329861.18 |
| Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.4329861.18 |
| Related Output | |
| Is part of | https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800085381 |
| Is part of | https://uclpress.co.uk/book/coercion-and-wage-labour/ |
| Language | English |
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