The Social Reproduction of Pandemic Surplus Populations and Global Development Narratives on Inequality and Informal Labour

Mezzadri, Alessandra

Abstract

This article proposes a reading of the COVID‐19 crisis through a social reproduction lens, with a focus on the restructuring of reproductive sectors, the world of work and the generation of differentiated surplus populations, and considers the implications of this reading for global development debates on inequality and informal labour. Learning from the pandemic and the social reproduction of the surplus populations it generated, the analysis argues that debates on inequality should be re‐centred on its existential nature and its embeddedness in social oppression, and that labour relations should be considered as key reproducers of inequality. It also argues that informal labour should be increasingly understood as playing the reproductive role of ‘global housework’ in contemporary capitalism.

Citation

Mezzadri, A. (2022). The Social Reproduction of Pandemic Surplus Populations and Global Development Narratives on Inequality and Informal Labour. Development and Change, 53(6), 1230-1253. https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12736

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 22, 2022
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 27, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 27, 2022
• Journal: Development and Change
• Print ISSN: 0012-155X
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-7660
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 1230-1253
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12736
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dech.12736