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Dr Adam Fishwick

Job: Associate Professor (Reader) in International Political Economy and Development Studies

Faculty: Business and Law

School/department: Leicester Castle Business School

Address: De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH

T: 0116 207 8723

E: adam.fishwick@dmu.ac.uk

W: dmu.ac.uk/bal

 

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Personal profile

Adam Fishwick is an Associate Professor (Reader) in International Political Economy and Development Studies at the Department of Politics, People and Place at De Montfort University, Leicester.

He currently holds a Leverhulme Trust International Academic Fellowship for his research on labour activism and austerity in Latin America. More broadly, he is interested in the political economy of work, labour movements and development in Latin America and has published widely across these research areas. 

Adam is the Institute Head of Research Students for the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA) and Programme Leader for the MA International Relations and MA Diplomacy and World Order. He is interested in supervising PhDs and supporting postdoctoral applications in areas that include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • International political economy of development
  • Political economy of work and labour in Latin America
  • Urban labour and social movements in Latin America
  • Radical alternative forms of social and economic organisation

Adam is also a co-founder of the Labour, Work and Development Network.

Research group affiliations

Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA)

People, Organisations and Work Institute (POWI)

Publications and outputs 

  • The Political Economy of Work in the Global South: Reflections on Labour Process Theory
    The Political Economy of Work in the Global South: Reflections on Labour Process Theory Hammer, Anita; Fishwick, Adam Part of the Critical Perspectives on Work and Employment series, this edited collection brings together contributions from leading international scholars to initiate an important dialogue between labour process analysis and scholarship on work in the Global South. This book characterises the forms of work and labour process that characterise globalising capitalism today and addresses core analytical concerns within Labour Process Theory and research on work in the South. It explores how a wide range of production relations in the Global South, ranging from formal to informal employment and self-employment, are embedded in wider social relations of gender, caste, religion and ethnicity, and are related to wider patterns of commodification and resistance. Drawing on cutting-edge research, the book’s chapters consider a diverse range of working situations, covering migrant workers in the Middle East, commercial surrogacy work in India and cooperative garment workers in Argentina. In offering a novel reading of the political economy of work in the Global South and shedding light on lesser-considered fields of work and worker organization, this volume will provide new insights for making sense of the changing world of work for students, scholars, labour activists and practitioners alike.
  • Book Review: Workers’ Movements and Strikes in the Twenty-First Century: A Global Perspective by Jörg Nowak, Madhumita Dutta and Peter Birke (eds)
    Book Review: Workers’ Movements and Strikes in the Twenty-First Century: A Global Perspective by Jörg Nowak, Madhumita Dutta and Peter Birke (eds) Fishwick, Adam The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
  • Book review: Ambassadors of the Working Class: Argentina's International Labor Activists and Cold War Democracy in the Americas‐by Semán, Ernesto
    Book review: Ambassadors of the Working Class: Argentina's International Labor Activists and Cold War Democracy in the Americas‐by Semán, Ernesto Fishwick, Adam
  • El “socialismo cotidiano” de los trabajadores textiles chilenos: Trazando una politica radical a traves de la prensa obrera, 1936-1973
    El “socialismo cotidiano” de los trabajadores textiles chilenos: Trazando una politica radical a traves de la prensa obrera, 1936-1973 Fishwick, Adam A diferencia de las experiencias en otros países, en Chile, luego de 1968, un gobierno socialista llegó al poder con el triunfo electoral de Salvador Allende y la Unidad Popular, respaldado por movimientos obreros que pregonaban la constitución de un socialismo. Mediante el uso de fragmentos recogidos de la prensa obrera durante los años 1930, 1950 y 1970, el objetivo de este artículo será identificar el contenido cambiante de la política socialista y de los sectores radicalizados que convergieron en esta victoria electoral. Asimismo, estos cambios serían registrables a través de la “experiencia cotidiana” de los obreros de la industria textil. Los trabajadores de este sector estaban en la vanguardia de los cambios profundos durante este periodo, desde la industrialización por sustitución de importaciones comenzada en la década de 1930 hasta el gobierno socialista de Salvador Allende de 1970 a 1973, donde las principales empresas textiles se encontraban en proceso de ocupación y nacionalización. Al trazar la evolución de las ideas socialistas en estas publicaciones —por los sindicatos, los partidos políticos y, en la década de 1970, por los trabajadores en las mismas fábricas ocupadas—, podemos desentrañar el desarrollo de una ideología de tipo radical y socialista que luego convergió en la victoria electoral de la UP. Metodológicamente, tomamos como apoyo el trabajo del sociólogo chileno Tomás Moulian (1993) y su concepto de las ideas “en uso” para examinar cómo las ideas radicales se desarrollan y cambian en su interacción con los conflictos sociales de cada época. En consecuencia, identificamos cuatro áreas en las que se desarrollaron estas ideas: expresión desde el puesto de trabajo; interpretación del descontento a través del discurso legalista y radical; la complejidad de las ideas socialistas y antiimperialistas chilenas; y la construcción de la memoria histórica. En definitiva, intentaré demostrar cómo estas cuatro características de las ideas socialistas chilenas estuvieron representadas en el “socialismo cotidiano” que interactuó en las ocupaciones de fábricas y transformaciones sociales nacientes desde 1970. This article has been published open access - the journal is fully open access.
  • Workplace Occupation and the Possibilities of Popular Power in Chile and Argentina, 1972-6
    Workplace Occupation and the Possibilities of Popular Power in Chile and Argentina, 1972-6 Fishwick, Adam The recent wave of occupations has had a transformative effect on radical politics, but as Michael Hardt (2015) has noted, many have been restricted in their social and spatial expansion. Reflecting on these challenges, this article examines workplace occupation in the coordinadoras interfabriles in Argentina (1975-6) and the cordones industriales in Chile (1972-3) to understand how they overcame barriers to such expansion. Following debates on space and occupations (Halvorsen 2017a; Vasudevan 2015; Risager 2016), I unpack the possibilities for popular power that emerged using approaches from critical labour studies (Atzeni 2010; Azzellini 2016) and autonomist Marxism (Zibechi 2012; Negri 2005). First, I outline the generative role of the workplace in producing these possibilities in a context of wider social change. Second, I demonstrate how the capacity for expansion lay in the simultaneous capacity to disrupt and reconstruct social relations derived from solidarities that exceeded the existing physical space of occupation.
  • Labour Control and Developmental State Theory: A New Perspective on Import-Substitution Industrialisation in Latin America
    Labour Control and Developmental State Theory: A New Perspective on Import-Substitution Industrialisation in Latin America Fishwick, Adam Drawing on historical research on the period of import-substitution industrialisation (ISI) in Chile and Argentina between the 1930s and 1960s, this article claims that developmental state theory (DST) on Latin America obfuscates a crucial feature of state intervention in the region. Specifically, despite a long-standing interest in state-society relations, it has thus far been unable to adequately incorporate labour-state relations and labour control in the workplace. This is because, in various guises, DST privileges state-society relations mediated by institutions from which labour is implicitly or explicitly excluded. In seeking to extend the analytical lens of DST, I combine critical labour relations and labour process theories to identify the purposive establishment of ‘regimes of labour control’ via changing institutional and workplace relations. Using this framework, I show how the often-vacillating strategies pursued by the state under ISI in Chile and Argentina and its inefficient outcomes can be better understood by incorporating these efforts designed to exert control over labour. The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link. open access article
  • Book Review: Labor Conflict and Capitalist Hegemony in Argentina: The Case of the Automobile Industry, 1990-2007 by Agustín Santella
    Book Review: Labor Conflict and Capitalist Hegemony in Argentina: The Case of the Automobile Industry, 1990-2007 by Agustín Santella Fishwick, Adam The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link
  • Origins and evolution of Maoism in Argentina, 1968-1971
    Origins and evolution of Maoism in Argentina, 1968-1971 Mignon, Carlos; Fishwick, Adam An apparently strange phenomenon in the history of ideas, Maoism was the only new ideological current to emerge in the Western Hemisphere after the Second World War. With constant references to popular China, but situated in a local context, Maoism developed as a unique ideology with a particular physiognomy that was forged in the sphere of the political left. In Argentina, the principle organizations that represented it – the Communist Vanguard and the Revolutionary Communist Party – were deeply involved in the class struggles of the industrial proletariat of Córdoba. Following an explication of our understanding of the role of political ideas in labour struggles through the work of the Chilean historical sociologist Tomás Moulian, we describe two foundational phases for these parties: the organizational and ideological. We situate these in the broader context of both the historical development of the working class in Córdoba and the explosive moments of Cordobazo. From here, we assess the tensions and contradictions in these phases and discuss the impact on their efforts to become the “vanguard” party of the working class, thereby showing the importance of tracing the origins and evolution of Maoism for understanding the radical labour history of Córdoba. The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.
  • Worker Recuperated Enterprises: Confronting the Return of Austerity in Argentina?
    Worker Recuperated Enterprises: Confronting the Return of Austerity in Argentina? Fishwick, Adam
  • Austerity and Working-Class Resistance: Survival, Disruption and Creation in Hard Times
    Austerity and Working-Class Resistance: Survival, Disruption and Creation in Hard Times Fishwick, Adam; Connolly, Heather

 

To see all of Adam's research outputs click here.

Key research outputs

Fishwick, Adam (2019) 'Workplace occupation and the possibilities of popular power in Chile and Argentina, 1972-6', Globalizations

Fishwick, Adam & Heather Connolly (2018) Austerity and Working-Class Resistance: Survival, Disruption and Creation in Hard Times (Rowman and Littlefield International)

Fishwick, Adam (2018) 'Labour Control and Developmental State Theory: A New Perspective on Import-Substitution Industrialisation', Development and Change

Fishwick, Adam & Ben Selwyn (2016) 'Labour-Centred Development in Latin America: Two cases of alternative development', Geoforum, 74: 233-243

 For further details of publications see here

Research interests/expertise

International political economy of development

Political economy of work and labour in Latin America

Urban labour and social movements in Latin America

Radical alternative forms of social and  economic organisation

Areas of teaching

International political economy

International relations

Development studies

Urban studies

Social Research Methods

Qualifications

PhD International Relations

MSc Comparative and Cross Cultural Research Methods

MA Global Political Economy

BA International Relations and Development Studies

Courses taught

POPP1104 Introduction to Contemporary International Relations

POPP2409 Making of a Global World

POPP2513 Political Research in Action

POPP5007 Globalisation

Programme Leader for MA International Relations and MA Diplomacy and World Order.

Honours and awards

Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (2019)

BAL Research Oscar for Excellence in International Collaboration (2019)

Future Research Leaders, De Montfort University (2017-18)

Membership of professional associations and societies

British International Studies Association (2013- )

International Studies Association (2014- )

Society for Latin American Studies (2015- )

International Initiative for the Promotion of Political Economy (2016-2018)

European International Studies Association (2018- )

Professional licences and certificates

PGCert in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2018

Conference attendance

‘More of the same? Union mobilization in Argentina’s automobile sector after the end of the Pink Tide’, Labour Struggles and Development, International Workshop, University of Nottingham, 25-26 June 2019.

‘Austerity and Labour Control in Latin America’, International Labour Process Conference, Vienna, 23-26 April 2019.

‘Flexibilisation, Precarity and the Re-ordering of Latin America: Work and the Workplace in Argentina at the End of the Pink Tide’, International Studies Association Annual Convention, Toronto, 27-30 March 2019.

‘Austerity and Working-Class Resistance: Survival, Disruption and Creation in Hard Times’, CURA Research Seminar Series (with Heather Connolly), 13 March 2019.

‘Fear and Hope at the End(ings) of Capitalism’ (with Nicholas Kiersey), Conference of the Caucus for a New Politics Science, Texas, 24-26 February 2019.

‘Mapping Postcapitalist Futures in the Dark: On the Political Economy of Exclusion and the Possibility of Possibility’, European International Studies Association Annual Conference, 12-15 September 2018.

‘Labour Organising in Latin America’, Radical Summer University, Iceland, 20-26 August.

‘Mapping Postcapitalist Futures in the Dark: On the Political Economy of Exclusion and the Possibility of Possibility’, BISA Research Workshop in International Studies, 12 June 2018.

For further details of conference attendance see here

Current research students

Martina Locorotondo, 1st Supervisor (with Arianna Giovannini and Julia Shaw), October 2019 - 

Planning a Common City: Experimental Community Practices and the Making of Alternative Art Institutions in Italian Cities

Sharon Ball, 2nd Supervisor (with Julia Shaw), October 2019 - 

The Right to Food in the UK? Examining opportunities for, and barriers to, innovative approaches, collaboration and transformative possibilities towards just and sustainable food access

Heather Powell, 1st Supervisor (with Anita Hammer), November 2017 - 

Working conditions in supply chain re-shoring. A case study of Leicester garment manufacturing

Marco Gottero, 2nd Supervisor (with Anita Hammer), October 2017 - 

Workers Out of Control: Recuperations, Reverberations and Communalism from Argentina to Greece

Externally funded research grants information

Leverhulme Trust International Academic Fellowship, 2019

Methodological innovation for comparative labour research in Argentina and Chile

Internally funded research project information

CURA Internal Research Fund (with Valeria Guarneros-Meza), 2019

Urban informality: Linking informal working practices and the governance of everyday life

De Montfort University Doctoral College, Research Training Project, 2019

CURA Urban Methodologies Summer School

Professional esteem indicators

I have been an editor with the following journals:

  • Sage Open (article editor)

 I have peer-reviewed articles for the following journals:

  • European Political Science
  • Globalizations
  • Journal of Labor and Society
  • Capital and Class
  • Comparative European Politics
  • Journal of Peasant Studies

I have peer-reviewed for the following academic publishers:

  • Oxford University Press
  • Sage
  • Zed Books
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