Post-fordist capitalism – characterised by flexible labour systems, sub-contracting, decentralization, and non-standard working hours – championed flattening of hierarchies and triumphed by incorporating the desires of post-68 working class for creative self-realisation. This “network capitalism”, however, coincided with the decrease of labour protections and the increased power of employers over the conditions of work (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007). As a result, work in many sectors of the economy is increasingly characterised by casualization, temporariness, extended shifts, and sudden schedule changes, which are becoming the new norm for a large share of the population. This precariousness as a condition of life corrodes one’s sense of security and hope in one’s future, leading to alienation (Sennett, 1998; Jaeggi, 2014).
Based on a series of interviews with Punjabi migrant workers in central Italy, we map intersecting layers of precariousness experienced by this group, as (1) irregular workers in capitalist labour market and (2) migrants in a neoliberal government that seeks to relieve manual labour shortages while excluding those labourers from citizen-level welfare and status. While discussing the emotional toll of labour precarity, we additionally highlight the precarious dimension of one’s legal status as the function of neoliberal state’s exclusionary citizenship regime and increased securitization of borders. We show how precariousness of work itself takes on greater gravity because of its connection to one’s legal status as a migrant, leaving workers powerless before employers who are not only guarantors of the means of subsistence, but of the very legitimacy of one’s presence in a country. This absolute dependence on the employer erodes the basis of self-respect and further complicates their attempts to resist or denounce exploitation. Economically needed but socially unwanted and institutionally excluded, the lives of migrant workers in neoliberal states are conditioned by insecurity and precariousness that is economic, social, and legal.
