Call for paper

For a special issue of the Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la
Méditerranée,to be published in 2004, under the responsibility of
Elisabeth
Longuenesse,Myriam Catusse and Blandine Destremau, on

Labour and the social issue in the Middle East and North Africa

In a recent book , Robert Castel questioned the “metamorphosis of the
social issue”, through the generalisation of wage labour in 19th century
France, which witnessed the emergence of new forms of precarity and
their social treatment.

How can this paradigm be generalised to other historical contexts? To
what extent can it be useful to understand the case of developing
countries
that were only recently and partially integrated to the market economy,
and
wherea variety of statuses, of modes of production and social
organisation,
represent a methodological challenge to historians and social
scientists?
This is what we would like to explore in the case of Middle Eastern and
North African countries, through the study of labour situations and
employment statuses, from wage labour, modern public and industrial
employment, to agricultural or precarious informal labour in
construction and service sectors, to street workers and non-paid
domestic labour. The
effects of recent evolutions, like the raising level of education, the
increasing participation of women to the workforce, the development of
labour migration and more than all the decrease in public employment, on
these different statuses, would have to be analysed as well.

How do these different statuses coexist, how do state and society
consider them and manage their coexistence? To which extent and how are
different
groups exposed to and/or protected against the hazards of life, the
irregularity of resources and revenues, accidents and risks, in other
words, what type of relations has developed between work and social
protection?

In industrial societies, the development of capitalism progressively
embraced all economic activities and productive sectors, which resulted
in the generalisation of wage labour. At the same time, the management
of
thelabour force, of its maintenance and reproduction, has been more and
more under the responsibility of the State, through public health and
education policies. Social protection and solidarity, which depended
first upon
churches and charitable organisations, were later supported by workers’
friendly societies or patronage systems, before becoming an issue of
negotiations between labour unions, employers’ organisations and the
State.

In developing countries, foreign intervention and exogenous factors
played a determinant role in the development of a capitalist system of
production. The labour market was segmented into sectors regulated by
different
social logics. The state control on the economy only introduced a new
divide
between a public sector dominated by a non-market distributive rationale
and a market sector. The latter is itself divided between modern
capitalist
production and small commodity production, where economic rationality is
often subordinated to other non economic social values, with many
intermediate or peripheral situation, according to the weight of the
peasantry, the degree of openness to the outside world, and the
influence of traditional work perception.

This segmentation inevitably results in a great variety of statuses,
which is but partially taken into account by labor legislation. The
latter
generally makes a distinction between public and private sector workers,
large and small establishment employees (with a limit which varies from
10 to 100, above which registration with social security funds is
compulsory) and between foreign and local manpower. However,
legislation usually
ignores all the informal oral contracts which regulate relations in the
smallest
units, in the crafts shops and even more in the countryside, where
benevolent help and exchange of services maintain a large part of the
productive activity outside the market economy.

Important categories of workers – often the most precarious – are thus
left out of the realm of law; they are neglected by unionism as well.
Labour
defense is often limited to the promotion of sectorial or corporatist
interests, which reinforces the segmentation of labour.

Today, with the decline of oil revenues, structural adjustment
policies, the opening of borders and the pressure of a world economy
which is
dominated by multinational companies and financial markets, the
evolution observed combines the retreating role of the states, the
globalisation
of labour migrations, new forms of poverty, and a growing interference
of
NGO’s.

As a leading strand to this special issue, we suggest the following
hypothesis : the double movement of segmentation and
internationalisation of the labour market is matched by a diminishing
role of states and public
labour legislations (that never covered more than a part of the labour
force), to the benefit of new forms of contractual labour. These changes
entail not only more precariousness, but also the shrinking of
solidarity and social protection into community and sectoral dynamics.
Hence an
increasing vulnerability of the weak, a weakening of national
integration and of the social bond, and a risk of fragmentation of
society.

On this theme and problematisation, we hope to collect contributions
bearing on different countries of the Middle East and North Africa,
dealing with complementary issues, and confronting cases and studies
that will
help us understand what is at stake in the evolution of labour and its
effects in terms of solidarity and social integration.

Time Table

Proposals including a one page abstract, a short CV and address of the
author, should be sent (preferably by mail) before june 1st 2003 to :
Elisabeth Longuenesse, Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée, 7 rue
Raulin, 69007 Lyon ([email protected]).

Final texts should be sent by the end 2003.