Labor of Extraction in Latin America

Kristin Ciupa is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Regina. She is the author of The Political Economy of Oil in Venezuela: Class Conflict, the State, and the World Market. Jeffery R. Webber is a professor of politics at York University, Toronto. He is the author or co-author of five books, and co-editor of two books. Most recently, he is co-author of The Impasse of the Latin American Left.

This edited collection contextualizes the current production of extractive labor in Latin America due to the political, historical, social, and economic effects of neoliberal policies and geopolitics. According to the editors, “The main objective of this edited collection is to inaugurate a research agenda aimed at filling an enormous gap concerning the question of labor in the extant literature on extractivism in Latin America” (p. 4). The editors organized this collection into five critical sections, bringing together 11 scholars. The writers challenge capitalist and neoliberal scholarship on the political status of 21st-century labor production in Latin America. Each chapter provides a strong, in-depth review and analysis, including theoretical frameworks that are critical for understanding extraction in modern Latin American labor production. This critical book will result in major contributions to future scholarship on this important subject. Every library should obtain a copy for their Latin American and labor collections. Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

• Table of ContentsPART ONE – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKChapter One – Introduction: The Labor of Extraction in Latin AmericaKristin Ciupa and Jeffery R. WebberPART TWO – REVISITING THE CLASSICAL CASESChapter Two – The Political Economy of the Labor Movement in Contemporary ArgentinaRuth Felder and Viviana Patroni Chapter Three – Oil and the Dualization of Venezuela’s Labor MovementKristin CiupaChapter Four – A Labor History of Extractivism in Colombia: From Coffee to Coca and BeyondPhillip A. Hough Chapter Five – Reading Peru from Chile: Examining Mining Unionism in the Twentieth and Twenty-First CenturiesOmar MankyChapter Six – Capital Accumulation and the Forms and Potentialities of the Labor Movement in Latin America: Critical Reflections on Argentina and ChileGuido Starosta and Fernando Javier CazónPART THREE – EXTENDING THE FRAMEWORKChapter Seven – Labor/Nature in (Late) Capitalist MexicoAleida Hernández Cervantes and Anna Zalik Chapter Eight – From Sindicalismo to Cooperativismo: The Atomization of the Bolivian Miners’ MovementAndrea Marston Chapter Nine – Migrant Labor as ExtractionChristopher LittlePART FOUR – CONCLUSION Chapter Ten – Conclusion and New DirectionsJeffery R. Webber