Undocumented Migration as Class Struggle in the Capitalist World-System: US and Chinese Comparison

• In Event: Political Economy of the World-System Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable I: Class, Culture, and Economic Inequality in the Contemporary World System

Abstract

Millions of migrants from the periphery live and work in core and semi-peripheral countries in the world-system without official permission. They are the undocumented migrants without visas who are considered “illegal aliens” in the countries where they settle. These migrants number 10-11 million in the United States and 4-5 million in western European countries. In this paper, we discuss these migrants and their migration from the standpoint of autonomous migration. By autonomous migration we mean the movement of people without visas across national borders or regions where authorization to cross is normally required, especially to live and work. Autonomous migrants bypass authorization by states to cross political boundaries and reach resources of economic to improve the social reproduction of family households. We view the efforts of people in the periphery to survive and improve their lives through autonomous migration as a class struggle to overcome marginalization in the world-system. It is class struggle to the extent that autonomous migrants share a common identity rooted in their lower socioeconomic condition. Autonomous migration offers a means of political recomposition to transcend the divisions of the capitalist world-system into core, periphery, and semi-periphery. In this paper, we compare conditions of autonomous migration in the semi-periphery of China and the periphery of Guatemala. The two countries are diametrically different in terms of population size and political system but share many similarities in conditions of autonomous migration. In the background of both countries, low-paying rural work and marginalization have motivated autonomous migration. The villainizing by state agencies of migrants gives the public the sense that undocumented migrants are criminal and dangerous by nature. We offer a different perspective—that the illegal but moral behavior of autonomous migration to support families derives from contradictions of the capitalist world-system.

Author

• Nestor Rodriguez, The University of Texas at Austin