The Coloniality of Wage and Unpaid Work

La colonialidad del salario y trabajo no remunerado

The paradigm of modernity has set up an excluding notion of work directly related to productive work and the generation of surplus value. Other different forms of labor have often been downplayed as archaic or obsolete, if not simply made invisible. However, behind that concealment, an international racialized and genderized labor division —articulated by the different forms of labor control under the capitalist model— is actually revealed. Under this classification, wage relations —despite how extended they are nowadays— have been almost exclusive to white male population in core countries, while unpaid labor is targeted at racialized—at times feminized— population in peripheral countries. Therefore, unpaid labor should be added to the frameworks of analysis that allow to understand its role in capitalist reproduction and in sustaining the colonial power pattern.