Michael Burawoy and Critical Labour Studies: racial capitalism, labour process and countermovement

Summary What does it mean to develop a labour sociology that is both critical and oriented towards social change? This paper seeks answers in the career of Michael Burawoy, a prominent sociologist who contributed much to critical labour sociology. I trace Burawoy’s career across three phases: studies of racial capitalism in southern Africa; factory ethnographies of the labour process and the politics of production; and the Polanyian turn to ‘third wave marketisation’ and countermovements. Taken together, this brilliant career offers three lessons for developing critical labour studies. First, we must recognise production, reproduction and the state as interwoven sites of politics. Second, we must pay careful attention to the role of non-class identities. Third, following the lead of Du Bois, we must study and support social movements. At its core, this programme of critical labour studies urges us to defend humanity and the social.