2 - From Organic Intellectuals to Academic Workers: How Knowledge Handlers Connect with Organized Labour

Summary

The pro-worker stance and knowledge production

In the preceding chapter, I argued that there is a normative foundation of global labour studies, which remains implicit in recent contributions to the field. I explained why there are sound reasons for global labour scholars to take a pro- worker stance, and that this means being in favour of workers exercising their collective power to undermine class domination. What I have not discussed so far, however, is what taking this stance means in practice. In other words, I have not examined how global labour scholars should operate if they take the normative foundation of their field seriously. This is what I will do in this and the next chapter.

There is an obvious starting point for the how- question. If ‘being on the side of workers’ means supporting them in their efforts to contest capitalist class domination, this means supporting organized labour broadly understood, that is, any attempts of workers to organize and mobilize. In a nutshell, siding with workers means supporting workers’ struggles. If one considers that scholars are professional handlers of knowledge, this suggests that scholars with a pro- worker stance should make available knowledge to workers that is useful for their struggles – and that helps them make good strategic decisions. The theoretical critique of social domination needs to be articulated with forms of practical critique – collective practices that contest social domination. In the bellicose language of the young Marx, ‘[t] he weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon’ (2009a).

These observations raise two questions: How can global labour scholars make useful strategic knowledge available for workers? And what kind of research designs do they need for this purpose? I will respond to the first question in this chapter, considering, again, the important contributions to global labour studies by Silver, Webster et al and the scholars promoting the PRA – but also interventions by authors operating in their vicinity, that is, from South African and German labour sociologists. Furthermore, I will discuss the reflections of two eminent Marxist intellectuals, Antonio Gramsci and Nicos Poulantzas. The second question will be my main subject in the next chapter, which is exclusively about the PRA. I have chosen this focus because it represents a conceptual framework that has been designed for labour research, and whose proponents explicitly commit themselves to the cause of labour.