Building a New Economic Sociology of Migration

This paper reflects on the economic sociology of migration in global capitalism from three perspectives: (1) from the perspective of the new sociology of markets and its mobilisation for theorising a social order of cross-border labor markets, (2) in studying intermediaries as market actors in the constitution of cross-market labor markets, and (3) in mapping the multiple-levels of public governance of transnational labor standards and social protections that might protect migrant labor from the extreme exploitation they typically face. The case is made for a theory of a sociology of cross-border labor markets that incorporates the risks, ambiguities and possibilities for the regulation of labor standards and social protections for the exchange of labor across territorial jurisdictions.