Contemporary transnational contract labor parallels colonial indenture through market logic

Evidence

It has been suggested that the colonial indenture period should be understood as separate and distinct from postcolonial South Asian migration (Ghosh 1989; Mishra 1996). I argue, in contrast, that through the logic of formal and informal markets, the conditions of contemporary transnational contract-labor migration parallel those of colonial indenture. As Vijay Mishra argues the distinction between diasporas of exclusion grounded in hierarchies of domination under imperial and colonial control and diasporas of border that are emblematic of the cultural politics of hybridity in the postcolonial era (Mishra 1996, 2006) is an important historical device to separate these two periods based on the di√erences in systems of power and formation of diasporic identity. However, it also obscures some of the present historical connections and continuities. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 462

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the recurring theme across recent reading of how legal classification (legal/illegal, formal/informal) maps onto exploitable worker categories — like the law-merchant reading on how institutions create extralegal markets. — connects to: Colonial indenture served as a flexible legal device far beyond labor — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 433