Fabulae and Plots. An ethnographic perspective on labor and movement in global production

Abstract

With input from the materials of an ethnography conducted in Moldova, the purpose of this article is to critically examine some of the most widely used notions in the analysis of labor in global production. Through the testimonies of subcontractors and workers, it will show how the categories of global value chains and global production networks reveal an approach that penalizes the social dimension of labor by "mapping" production and the contexts in which it takes shape. To examine the distribution and ongoing restructuring of global supply networks, this article instead adopts worker mobility as an analytical lens. The category of supply chains capitalism is particularly valuable in this regard because it is more attentive to considering the strategic combination of social, economic, and political elements in shaping lives at work.