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theses

I use archival evidence to analyze the Czechoslovak-Vietnamese labor exchange program between 1967 and 1989. Using the program as a lens, I examine the changes in the Czechoslovak state’s self-conception qua a state-socialist state and provider of care. I find that the status of Vietnamese workers in relation to Czechoslovak state’s conception of welfare changed from that of an object of care in the early phases of the program to that of a means the state used to secure welfare and “social comfort” for its citizens. Crucial to this transformation was a progressive drive toward greater commodification of Vietnamese workers’ labor. Drawing on Michael Burawoy’s argument that the key feature of migrant labor is the separation between the processes of labor’s reproduction and maintenance, each of which takes place in a different nation state, I argue that during the phases when the Czechoslovak state assumed a significant financial and practical responsibility for Vietnamese workers’ education and training (i.e., their reproduction as labor) the degree of their commodification was relatively low and it was further limited by their eligibility for some (though not all) welfare and social services provided to them on the same basis as they were provided to Czechoslovak citizens. When, however, in the last phase of the program, the Czechoslovak state stopped assuming responsibility for Vietnamese workers’ education and training and started valuing them primarily for being a “fully mobile labor force” that could be used to plug the holes in Czechoslovak labor market, the degree of Vietnamese workers’ commodification increased substantially. Concomitantly, the Czechoslovak state’s economic priorities took precedence over the Vietnamese state’s economic and developmental priorities. My last major finding, however, is that both Vietnamese workers and Vietnamese government officials pushed back: the former through strikes and insubordination, and the latter through pressure at the negotiating table. I argue that, contrary to received ideas, the ideology of internationalism and socialism constituted a valuable resource for this pushback because (1) it made the Czechoslovak state politically accountable to its Vietnamese counterpart, and (2) it provided an effective vernacular in which to articulate the non-negotiability of workers’ rights.

ETD_5410

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Alena K. Alamgir

doi:10.7282/T3319T5Z

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.