Migrant workers around the world are subject to exploitative labor practices that give employers extraordinary bargaining power. This book brings together researchers, practitioners, and advocates who explore the many ways that contracted migrant workers are rendered vulnerable in the workplace. In this book, the term ‘21st-century coolie’ is deployed as a heuristic device that foregrounds the deeply unequal structures shaping the transnational flows of short-term, migrant workers. The term ‘coolie’ harkens back to the labor arrangements of earlier centuries that involved conscripted labor, indentured servitude, and contract labor across national borders. Like those of past centuries, today’s ‘coolies’ are subject to legal constraints inside and outside the employment relationship that force them into subjugated positions within the workplace.

The chapters of this anthology situate contemporary global migration regimes in histories of colonization, uncover their racialized as well as gendered nature, and examine the role of nation-states in perpetuating conditions of extreme exploitation. The permeability, mutability, and durability of racial capitalism is revealed through an interdisciplinary and practice-oriented lens.



Law and social science students in graduate courses on migration, labor, employment, employment discrimination, and race and the law will gain a deeper understanding of the issues facing migrant workers today, as will students in humanities, performance studies, narrative studies, and communication studies.