Skip to Main Content

Researching Forced Labour in the Global Economy: Methodological Challenges and Advances

Online ISBN:
9780191884214
Print ISBN:
9780197266472
Publisher:
British Academy
Book

Researching Forced Labour in the Global Economy: Methodological Challenges and Advances

Genevieve LeBaron (ed.)
Genevieve LeBaron
(ed.)

Professor of Politics and Co-Director of the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI)

Professor of Politics and Co-Director of the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI), University of Sheffield
Find on
Published online:
19 September 2019
Published in print:
21 December 2018
Online ISBN:
9780191884214
Print ISBN:
9780197266472
Publisher:
British Academy

Abstract

By most accounts, forced labour, human trafficking, and modern slavery are thriving in the global economy. Recent media reports — including the discovery of widespread trafficking in Thailand's shrimp industry, forced labour in global tea and cocoa supply chains, and the devastating deaths of workers constructing stadiums for Qatar's World Cup— have brought once hidden exploitation into the mainstream spotlight. As public concern about forced labour has escalated, governments around the world have begun to enact legislation to combat it in global production. Yet, in spite of soaring media and policy attention, reliable research on the business of forced labour remains difficult to come by. Forced labour is notoriously challenging to investigate, given that it is illegal, and powerful corporations and governments are reluctant to grant academics access to their workers and supply chains. Given the risk associated with researching the business of forced labour, until very recently, few scholars even attempted to collect hard or systematic data. Instead, academics have often had little choice but to rely on poor quality second-hand data, frequently generated by activists and businesses with vested interests in portraying the problem in a certain light. As a result, the evidence base on contemporary forced labour is both dangerously thin and riddled with bias. Researching Forced Labour in the Global Economy gathers an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars to tackle this problem. It provides the first, comprehensive scholarly account of forced labour's role in the contemporary global economy and reflections on the methodologies used to generate this research.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close