Choosing to Be Unfree? The Aspirations and Constraints of Debt-bonded Brick Workers in Cambodia

Abstract

This chapter explores the experiences of debt-bonded brick workers in Cambodia, whose unfree labour contributes to the country's construction sector boom. Drawing on recent scholarship on the rise of debt as a coercive form of labour control within late-capitalist exploitation, the chapter asks how unfree labour relations constrain brick workers' aspirations for life beyond the kiln. In doing so, it considers how unfree labour represents a form of escape for many from unsustainable microfinance debt, while trapping them within the structural constraints of unfreedom. The chapter concludes that there is a need to foreground the role of unfreedom, and the constraints it places on worker agency, within accounts of unwaged and informal work.