The geopolitics of labour

The concepts of geopolitics and labour, both central to debates on migration and justice, rarely occur together. This chapter extends and expands our previous work on the changing constitution of global space and the mutating global division of labour to rethink the relation of geopolitics to labour. Building on previous concepts developed in our writings, including ‘the multiplication of labour’ and ‘the threshold of justice’s excess’, we ask how migratory movements offer a key to understanding present transformations of geopolitics and labour. Geopolitics focuses on operations of power in relation to geographical space, with the traditional emphasis on international relations and the strategies of nation-states. Labour, by contrast, evokes the subjective capacities of the human body and their production as the commodity of labour power. In forging an approach to the geopolitics of labour, this chapter investigates how changing patterns of governance (including renationalization and pandemic control) redefine the spaces and scales of justice in ways significant for migratory and border struggles.