Mapping Social Reproduction Theory – serie

This groundbreaking collection explores the profound power of Social Reproduction Theory to deepen our understanding of everyday life under capitalism. While many Marxists tend to focus on the productive economy, this book focuses on issues such as child care, health care, education, family life and the roles of gender, race and sexuality, all of which are central to understanding the relationship between economic exploitation and social oppression.In this book, leading writers such as Lise Vogel, Nancy Fraser, David McNally and Susan Ferguson reveal the ways in which daily and generational reproductive labour, found in households, schools, hospitals and prisons, also sustains the drive for accumulation. Presenting a more sophisticated alternative to intersectionality, these essays provide ideas which have important strategic implications for anti-capitalists, anti-racists and feminists attempting to find a path through the seemingly ever more complex world we live in.

Feminism is once again on the political agenda. Across the world women are taking to the streets to protest unfair working conditions, abortion laws, and sexual violence. They are demanding decent wages, better schools and free childcare. But why do some feminists choose to fight for more women CEOs, while others fight for a world without CEOs?To understand these divergent approaches, Susan Ferguson looks at the ideas that have inspired women to protest, exploring the ways in which feminists have placed work at the centre of their struggle for emancipation. Two distinct trajectories emerge: 'equality feminism' and 'social reproduction feminism'. Ferguson argues that socialists have too often embraced the 'liberal' tendencies of equality feminism, while neglecting the insights of social reproduction feminism.Engaging with feminist anti-work critiques, Ferguson proposes that women's emancipation depends upon a radical reimagining of all labour and advocates for a renewed social reproduction framework as a powerful basis for an inclusive feminist politics.

As we grow up, we move from a life full of play to one dictated by labour. But what is the nature of play under capitalism? Here, Susan Ferguson argues that play is not just 'kids being kids'—it is a vital part of how our world and our lives are made and remade. While our society treats play as a cornerstone of childhood, the system demands workers, not dreamers.Child’s Play traces how kindergartens and playgrounds have served as the front lines of this tension since the late nineteenth century, channelling the intimacy of play towards narrow, productive, instrumental ends. Yet, the absence of these very spaces in many racialised and colonised communities highlights a stark reality: certain children are considered unworthy of developing beyond childhood.Ferguson shows how children and what we learn from their imagination may hold the key to overturning capitalism.

Feminism is once again on the political agenda. Across the world women are taking to the streets to protest unfair working conditions, abortion laws, and sexual violence. They are demanding decent wages, better schools and free childcare. But why do some feminists choose to fight for more women CEOs, while others fight for a world without CEOs?To understand these divergent approaches, Susan Ferguson looks at the ideas that have inspired women to protest, exploring the ways in which feminists have placed work at the centre of their struggle for emancipation. Two distinct trajectories emerge: 'equality feminism' and 'social reproduction feminism'. Ferguson argues that socialists have too often embraced the 'liberal' tendencies of equality feminism, while neglecting the insights of social reproduction feminism.Engaging with feminist anti-work critiques, Ferguson proposes that women's emancipation depends upon a radical reimagining of all labour and advocates for a renewed social reproduction framework as a powerful basis for an inclusive feminist politics.

Many communities in the United States have been abandoned by the state. What happens when natural disasters add to their misery? This book looks at the broken relationship between the federal government and civil society in times of crises.Mutual aid has gained renewed importance in providing relief when hurricanes, floods and pandemics hit, as cuts to state spending put significant strain on communities struggling to survive. Harking back to the self-organised welfare programmes of the Black Panther Party, radical social movements from Occupy to Black Lives Matter are building autonomous aid networks within and against the state. However, as the federal responsibility for relief is lifted, mutual aid faces a profound dilemma: do ordinary people become complicit in their own exploitation?Reframing disaster relief through the lens of social reproduction, Peer Illner tracks the shifts in American emergency aid, from the economic crises of the 1970s to the Covid-19 pandemic, raising difficult questions about mutual aid's double-edged role in cuts to social spending. As sea levels rise, climate change worsens and new pandemics sweep the globe, Illner's analysis of the interrelations between the state, the market and grassroots initiatives will prove indispensable.

Many communities in the United States have been abandoned by the state. What happens when natural disasters add to their misery? This book looks at the broken relationship between the federal government and civil society in times of crises.Mutual aid has gained renewed importance in providing relief when hurricanes, floods and pandemics hit, as cuts to state spending put significant strain on communities struggling to survive. Harking back to the self-organised welfare programmes of the Black Panther Party, radical social movements from Occupy to Black Lives Matter are building autonomous aid networks within and against the state. However, as the federal responsibility for relief is lifted, mutual aid faces a profound dilemma: do ordinary people become complicit in their own exploitation?Reframing disaster relief through the lens of social reproduction, Peer Illner tracks the shifts in American emergency aid, from the economic crises of the 1970s to the Covid-19 pandemic, raising difficult questions about mutual aid's double-edged role in cuts to social spending. As sea levels rise, climate change worsens and new pandemics sweep the globe, Illner's analysis of the interrelations between the state, the market and grassroots initiatives will prove indispensable.

How do we integrate the theoretical underpinnings of Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) into our understanding of the social harms inflicted upon us? How can we use it to inform our struggles and affect societal change under capitalism?Integrating our understanding of productive and reproductive spheres and exploring the connection between identity-based oppression and class exploitation, SRT has emerged as a powerful Marxist frame for social analysis and political practice. In this book, Aaron Jaffe extracts SRT's radical potential, relying on recent struggles, including the International Women's Strike and the teachers' strikes, showing how we can use SRT to motivate socialist politics and strategy.Using Social Reproduction Theory to appreciate distinct forms of social domination, this unique and necessary book will have vital strategic implications for anti-capitalists, anti-racists, LGBT activists, disability activists and feminists.

How do we integrate the theoretical underpinnings of Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) into our understanding of the social harms inflicted upon us? How can we use it to inform our struggles and affect societal change under capitalism?Integrating our understanding of productive and reproductive spheres and exploring the connection between identity-based oppression and class exploitation, SRT has emerged as a powerful Marxist frame for social analysis and political practice. In this book, Aaron Jaffe extracts SRT's radical potential, relying on recent struggles, including the International Women's Strike and the teachers' strikes, showing how we can use SRT to motivate socialist politics and strategy.Using Social Reproduction Theory to appreciate distinct forms of social domination, this unique and necessary book will have vital strategic implications for anti-capitalists, anti-racists, LGBT activists, disability activists and feminists.

***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021***In this sharp intervention, authors Lucí Cavallero and Verónica Gago defiantly develop a feminist understanding of debt, showing its impact on women and members of the LGBTQ+ community and examining the relationship between debt and social reproduction.Exploring the link between financial activity and the rise of conservative forces in Latin America, the book demonstrates that debt is intimately linked to gendered violence and patriarchal notions of the family. Yet, rather than seeing these forces as insurmountable, the authors also show ways in which debt can be resisted, drawing on concrete experiences and practices from Latin America and around the world.Featuring interviews with women in Argentina and Brazil, the book reveals the real-life impact of debt and how it falls mainly on the shoulders of women, from the household to the wider effects of national debt and austerity. However, through discussions around experiences of work, prisons, domestic labour, agriculture, family, abortion and housing, a narrative of resistance emerges.Translated by Liz Mason-Deese.

***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021***In this sharp intervention, authors Lucí Cavallero and Verónica Gago defiantly develop a feminist understanding of debt, showing its impact on women and members of the LGBTQ+ community and examining the relationship between debt and social reproduction.Exploring the link between financial activity and the rise of conservative forces in Latin America, the book demonstrates that debt is intimately linked to gendered violence and patriarchal notions of the family. Yet, rather than seeing these forces as insurmountable, the authors also show ways in which debt can be resisted, drawing on concrete experiences and practices from Latin America and around the world.Featuring interviews with women in Argentina and Brazil, the book reveals the real-life impact of debt and how it falls mainly on the shoulders of women, from the household to the wider effects of national debt and austerity. However, through discussions around experiences of work, prisons, domestic labour, agriculture, family, abortion and housing, a narrative of resistance emerges.Translated by Liz Mason-Deese.

'Takes social reproduction feminism and queer Marxism in exciting new directions' - Peter Drucker, author of WarpedOur deeply human drive to shape the world around us and fulfill ourselves through labor is subverted by capitalist alienation, leaving us to find fulfillment elsewhere.As a result, our erotic drives become the central focus for transformation and life-making, but are themselves restricted and fueled by whatever energy is left after completing the monetized or social reproductive work required to survive. This alienation encounters ongoing resistance, as life-making activity can never be fully separated from the person who labors.Eros and Alienation delves into the underexplored relationship between alienated labor and sexuality. Alan Sears explores the ways this alienation frames the processes of gender and sexual formation, showing how the organization of work contributes to the development of a dominant regime of gendered sexualities, defined by a binary gender mapping of desire as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual.

'This insightful, thoughtful work needs to be read by all of us who are interested in contemporary childbirth practices. Anna Fielder has brought together the two concepts of labour - work, and giving birth - and shows us how both are subsumed under capitalism' - Barbara Katz Rothman, author of In Labor: Women and Power in the BirthplaceChildbirth is often described as a natural process, and yet the choices we make around birth, the risks we face and the care available to us, are tightly bound up in the dynamics of the capitalist system in which we live. Capitalist relations shape childbirth in largely unacknowledged ways but with intensely inequitable, often traumatic, effects. Going into Labour is a Marxist analysis of the labour of childbirth and of birth care. Through the chapters, former midwife Anna Fielder interrogates key features of contemporary childbearing, situating birth as a crucial site of struggle against capitalism. Fielder writes of productivity drives, insurance companies, formulations of risk and calls for scientific evidence. She emphasises the pay and working conditions of birth workers such as midwives and nurses. She also signals the importance of political struggles in birthing arenas against forces including racism, colonialism, misogyny and cisheteronormativity. As capitalism draws on these forces, shaping contemporary inequities and oppressions, activists work to gestate futures that aspire beyond the constraints of the present.

Social reproduction theory is a big idea. It explores how the daily renewal of human life, and therefore human labour, is essential to capitalism. Here, leading feminists come together to apply the theory to one of its most extreme settings - that of Palestine.Israel’s settler colonialism is premised on the eradication of Palestinian lives, undermining Palestinian social reproduction at every turn. This project, which ramped up after October 7th, does have a logic, and by examining the concrete, historically specific details, the authors begin to reshape and refine the theory of Social Reproduction, shedding light on why Israel’s assault is so brutal.Chapters look at Israel’s mass murder of a generation of Palestinians in Gaza, the effects of ecocide, the relationship between land dispossession and class, Israel’s selective pronatalism, scholasticide and other topics. By understanding this deadly logic, we can look deeper into the heart of the evils of capitalism, and stand in solidarity with Palestine.

'A compelling critique of bourgeois society and women's oppression - a critique that not only advances theory, but also engages deeply with the historical and political conditions of social transformation' - Melda Yaman, İstanbul UniversityLise Vogel is a unique voice in feminist theory. This book collects her best essays, opening a window into the last half-century of US socialist feminism.A trailblazer in the 1970s, Vogel planted the seeds for contemporary Social Reproduction Theory with her 'unitary theory' of capitalist exploitation and the oppression of women. Along with others, she challenged established views within the academy and movement by insisting that Marxist theory can accommodate not only class, but also race and gender. Today, her work is more popular than ever, inspiring socialist feminists to develop inclusive liberatory ideas for the next generation.Selected from five decades of Vogel's work, including long out-of-print material, this volume is a crucial resource for readers interested in the intellectual history of Marxist feminism and twentieth-century activism.

Capitalism attempts to sustain itself in ever more barbaric ways. Since the 1980s, one way has been to incarcerate whole sections of society. This empire of punishment, which formed a central pillar of neoliberal propaganda, has performed a covert role in the entrenchment of an economic system designed to extract wealth, liberty and life from the people who live within it.In this new, materialist understanding of mass incarceration, prison abolitionist Emmy Rākete theorises how we got here. As capitalism floundered in the 1980s, it increased its economic exploitation, which in turn made it harder for workers to live well and continue to be productive members of society. The imprisonment of many of these people that swiftly followed was a calculated, yet dysfunctional response by the very system that created the problem.Empire of Punishment offers a deft and powerful new application of decolonial theory, prison abolitionist theory, and social reproduction theory. At its heart, this is a book about strategy and resistance, showing that opposition to mass incarceration is a necessity for anti-capitalist struggle.