From mobility to the transfer of working force: migratory capitalism through the “migration industry” and “a critical balance of the bracero program”

Abstract

Currently, migrating is not only an act of human mobility from one place to another but has become a transfer of labor as an expression of abstract work based on the divisions of its international organization and the configuration of local labor markets. Language as a social institution not only governs the linguistic behavior of its speakers, but also reflects the political transformations that have taken place in certain societies. These are not just abstractions but rather the result of the molding that capital often exerts on social practices and, in this case, sociolinguistics. Although the foregoing may seem exaggerated, it nevertheless opens the possibility of a theoretical exploration to investigate one of the numerous relationships of domination and interference that capital commits in human life in movement. In this article, it is intended to initiate this exploration by coining the concept of migratory capitalism and presenting its main edges. To achieve this fact, a critical dialogue is established based on the work of Marx (i.e. critical theory of value) with two texts by migration scholars about the migration industry and «a critical balance of the bracero program”, as well as an analysis of a poster that illustrates the history of migrations to France.