Publication date: 25 January 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800085381
Number of illustrations: 44
Coercion and Wage Labour
Exploring work relations through history and art
Anamarija Batista (Editor), Viola Müller (Editor), Corinna Peres (Editor)
Series: Work Around the World
Coercion and Wage Labour presents novel histories of people who experienced physical, social, political or cultural compulsion in the course of paid work. Broad in scope, the chapters examine diverse areas of work including textile production, war industries, civil service and domestic labour, in contexts from the Middle Ages to the present day. They demonstrate that wages have consistently shaped working people’s experiences, and failed to protect workers from coercion. Instead, wages emerge as versatile tools to bind, control, and exploit workers. Remuneration mirrors the distribution of power in labour relations, often separating employers physically and emotionally from their employees, and disguising coercion.
The book makes historical narratives accessible for interdisciplinary audiences. Most chapters are preceded by illustrations by artists invited to visually conceptualise the book’s key messages and to emphasise the presence of the body and landscape in the realm of work. In turn, the chapter texts reflect back on the artworks, creating an intense intermedial dialogue that offers mutually relational ‘translations’ and narrations of labour coercion. Other contributions written by art scholars discuss how coercion in remunerated labour is constructed and reflected in artistic practice. The collection serves as an innovative and creative tool for teaching, and raises awareness that narrating history is always contingent on the medium chosen and its inherent constraints and possibilities.
Related titles
Coercion and Wage Labour
Exploring work relations through history and art
Series: Work Around the World
Publication date: January 25, 2024
Open Access PDF ISBN: 9781800085381
Paperback ISBN: 9781800085398
Hardback ISBN: 9781800085404
Trim size (hardback): 23.4cm x 15.6cm
Trim size (paperback): 23.4cm x 15.6cm
Coercion and Wage Labour presents novel histories of people who experienced physical, social, political or cultural compulsion in the course of paid work. Broad in scope, the chapters examine diverse areas of work including textile production, war industries, civil service and domestic labour, in contexts from the Middle Ages to the present day. They demonstrate that wages have consistently shaped working people’s experiences, and failed to protect workers from coercion. Instead, wages emerge as versatile tools to bind, control, and exploit workers. Remuneration mirrors the distribution of power in labour relations, often separating employers physically and emotionally from their employees, and disguising coercion.
The book makes historical narratives accessible for interdisciplinary audiences. Most chapters are preceded by illustrations by artists invited to visually conceptualise the book’s key messages and to emphasise the presence of the body and landscape in the realm of work. In turn, the chapter texts reflect back on the artworks, creating an intense intermedial dialogue that offers mutually relational ‘translations’ and narrations of labour coercion. Other contributions written by art scholars discuss how coercion in remunerated labour is constructed and reflected in artistic practice. The collection serves as an innovative and creative tool for teaching, and raises awareness that narrating history is always contingent on the medium chosen and its inherent constraints and possibilities.
‘Coercion and Wage Labour impressively illustrates the historical and current conflict potential of wages based on the human experiences of individual’
Wirtschaft and Gesellschaft
‘A fascinating aspect of this book is its experiment of creating what editor Anamarija Batista in her afterword refers to as a “translation loop between academics and artists… chapters by Müge Özbek and Nico Pizzolato, this dialogue contributes significantly to the analysis and does indeed help to visualize and conceptualize the topic. [The] attempt to combine artistic renditions of historical analysis and academic texts of the same is a novel and commendable idea that should be further explored. Coercion and Wage Labour is an excellent and timely exploration of work relations in a global context and over a vast time period, a study that encapsulates the changes in the practice of labor history within the last few decades.’
The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History
‘This is a pioneering volume. It makes a well-founded break with the widespread misconception that wage labour is by definition free from coercion. The 14 historical case studies cover a vast geographical area and review a long time period. Together, they lead to the conclusion that wage labourers too were subject to many forms of coercion and that usually their “freedom” was and is only relative. But something else makes this book special: throughout the text there are artistic illustrations that enter into a dialogue with the individual chapters and create an inspiring interaction that complements the volume’s interdisciplinary nature.’
Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
