3 - The Challenge of Strategic Research: A Critical Engagement with the Power Resources Approach

Summary

A low- threshold research approach

If we take the normative foundation of global labour studies seriously, the aim is to produce knowledge that is strategically relevant for workers. Consequently, it makes sense to focus on their collective agency, that is, on their capacity to actively shape the social world through joint action. The strike weapon is risky to use but forceful. Workers across the globe are resorting to it time and again – and have done so since labour movements emerged in the context of early industrialization. As such, it is of high strategic relevance – and ideally suited as a research object for global labour scholars. But the question remains what kind of categories are needed to analyse it systematically.

An obvious choice for this endeavour is the PRA. It represents the most elaborate attempt to date in the field to develop a research framework that can be used to produce strategically relevant knowledge. Furthermore, it is a low- threshold approach. It works with clearly defined, parsimonious categories and thus is easy to use. The use value of the PRA is reflected in a plethora of studies based on it, which are usually aimed at identifying strategies for labour revitalization. A significant number of students in German GLU programme, most of whom are union officials or labour practitioners, employ it in their coursework and dissertations. In my view, Stefan Schmalz, Carmen Ludwig and Edward Webster are right to argue that the PRA crosses the divide between academia and activism (2018: 113). Consequently, it is well- suited for intellectual practices in the ‘organic academic’ and ‘academic worker’ mould.

Nevertheless, an open question remains. If the normative foundation of global labour studies consists in a principled critique of class domination, it follows that contributions to the field should discuss how workers negotiate class relations. This in turn requires a careful conceptualization of class. In this chapter, I discuss whether the PRA meets this exigency. In this sense, I continue my discussion of how to do justice – in our conceptualizations – to the normative foundations of the field.