Industrial Workers

For much of the twentieth century, the study of industrial workers was not central to the disciplinary project of anthropology. However, in the wake of the 1973 oil shock and world economic crisis, anthropologists increasingly undertook research in industrial settings. This turn coincided with the liberalization of national economies, new international trade agreements, and the movement of capital out of historic centers to new industrial zones in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In this global context, several problems came to the fore: the decline of older industrial communities; the proletarianization of new workforces; national, racial, ethnic, and gender segmentation and inequality; the prevalence of precarious work; and debates about the future of class politics. The anthropology of industrial workers expanded disciplinary boundaries and engaged in cross‐disciplinary conversations with history, sociology, labor history, geography, and other fields.