The Logistics of Neoliberal Slavery: Legal Production of Illegality

Principle Investigator：Joyce C.H. Liu, Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (2019-2021)

Principle Investigator：Joyce C.H. Liu, Institute of Social Research
and Cultural Studies, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (2019-2021)

The rapid rise of global capitalism and the increasing competition of neoliberal markets have speeded up temporary migrant workers' flow and exacerbated labor extraction through a sophisticated logistics system that contributes to neoliberal slavery in the 21st century. This project challenges the phenomenon of the legal production of illegality concerning migrant workers. My core intervention is to argue that contemporary societies' legal ideology of citizenship and its sovereign control have triggered new forms of internal colonization. This project also wants to urge the conceptualization of "citizens" to de-link with the notion of nationality based on abstract ideas of blood, religion, language, etc. "Citizens"— "city-dwellers"—should refer to those who live and work here belong to the place and should enjoy equal access to the social space.  To elaborate my argument, I borrowed the image of the sardine cane at sea on Tempo magazine as a metaphorical trope for the complex topological logistical network that supports the neoliberal slavery system in the 21st century. From this axis of the logistic chain, I shall analyze the engine that drives the regeneration and transformation of the slavery system in the 21st century.  I take the geo-historical parameters and the local economic demands as the co-constitutive figures that contribute to the recruitment of temporary migrant laborers as the surplus reproductive troops. The discourse of multiculturalism is convenient for recruitment as a disguise. The juridical stipulations based on the legal ideology of citizenship further aggravate civic space's physical and symbolic violence. My project shall conclude with the logistics of neoliberal slavery locked up with the citizenship ideology and propose a new conceptualization of citizenship and civil rights.

Keywords: Neoliberal Slavery, Logistical Chain, Unequal Citizens, Internal Colonialism, Border Politics, Legal Ideology, Citizenship Politics, Civic Exclusion, Temporary Migrant Workers