Racially subordinate labour within global contexts: Robinson and Hopkins re-examined

Abstract

World-systems theory has recognised that local histories of how labour has been configured in particular (racialised) contexts cannot grasp the ways in which these histories form part of the capitalist world-system. But, in pursuing world-historical analyses of racially subordinate labour, there is also a danger of ignoring what is historically specific about such labour. Focusing on the affinities between Cedric Robinson’s work, particularly in Black Marxism, and that of Terence K. Hopkins in the late 1970s and early 1980s points to ways in which this challenge can be overcome.