Jorg Nowak – författare

Against the background of the global economic crisis since 2007/2008 and increasing inequality across the world, the Global South has experienced widespread, large-scale industrial action, including in countries such as China, Brazil, India and South Africa, which had been hailed as the new growth engines of the global political economy as part of the so-called BRICS.

This volume systematically evaluates how the new forms of labour mobilization witnessed in the past ten years responded to the predominance of the informality-precarity complex of industrial relations and what conclusions can be drawn for potentially successful strategies against exploitation in the future. Can we identify a convergence of new approaches across the Global South, or do we witness an ongoing fragmentation of actors, models and strategies? In addressing this question, consideration is given to issues of class as well as gender and race.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Globalizations.

Against the background of the global economic crisis since 2007/2008 and increasing inequality across the world, the Global South has experienced widespread, large-scale industrial action, including in countries such as China, Brazil, India and South Africa, which had been hailed as the new growth engines of the global political economy as part of the so-called BRICS.

This volume systematically evaluates how the new forms of labour mobilization witnessed in the past ten years responded to the predominance of the informality-precarity complex of industrial relations and what conclusions can be drawn for potentially successful strategies against exploitation in the future. Can we identify a convergence of new approaches across the Global South, or do we witness an ongoing fragmentation of actors, models and strategies? In addressing this question, consideration is given to issues of class as well as gender and race.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Globalizations.

—Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History, The Netherlands

 “Nowak’s book meticulously details the trajectory of strikes and its resultant new forms of organisations in India and Brazil. The central focus of this analytically rich and thought provoking book is to search for a new political alternative model of organising workers. A very good deed indeed!”

—Nandita Mondal, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India

 “Jörg Nowak analyses with critical sense forms of popular organization that often remain invisible. It is an indispensable book for all those who are looking for more effective analytical resources to better understand the present situation and the future promises of the workers’ movements.”

—Roberto Vérasde Oliveira, Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil

 “In this timely and important study, Nowak convincingly challenges the dominant Eurocentric approach to labour conflict and calls for a new theory of strikes. He stresses the need to engage in a wider perspective that includes social reproduction, neighbourhood mobilisations, and the specific traditions of struggles in the Global South.”

—Edward Webster, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa