<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Neoliberal globalisation has expanded transnational corporations’ (TNCs) boundaries of operation and sphere of exploitation, particularly in the Global South where much of the production of traditional TNC manufacturing now occurs. In this article, using a longitudinal approach, I conduct a detailed critical discourse analysis of a large Swedish press corpus reporting on TNC activities in Global South countries. The analysis suggests that the issue of workers’ conditions is made relevant to the Swedish public through a “consumer framework” that not only confers proximity and relevance on the topic, but also effectively recontextualises agency and responsibility towards particular or individual social actors, obscuring the class dimension of labour relations and global production. Moreover, rooted in a highly problematic colonial imagery, exploitation in the Global South is seen as a “cultural problem” of “them” rather than a problem related to the social and spatial relations of global capitalism.</p>
</abstract>

Neoliberal globalisation has expanded transnational corporations’ (TNCs) boundaries of operation and sphere of exploitation, particularly in the Global South where much of the production of traditional TNC manufacturing now occurs. In this article, using a longitudinal approach, I conduct a detailed critical discourse analysis of a large Swedish press corpus reporting on TNC activities in Global South countries. The analysis suggests that the issue of workers’ conditions is made relevant to the Swedish public through a “consumer framework” that not only confers proximity and relevance on the topic, but also effectively recontextualises agency and responsibility towards particular or individual social actors, obscuring the class dimension of labour relations and global production. Moreover, rooted in a highly problematic colonial imagery, exploitation in the Global South is seen as a “cultural problem” of “them” rather than a problem related to the social and spatial relations of global capitalism.

Dismissing class: Media representations of workers’ conditions in the Global South

School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Neoliberal globalisation has expanded transnational corporations’ (TNCs) boundaries of operation and sphere of exploitation, particularly in the Global South...

Topic	Sub-topics and lexical choices
Working conditions	excessive working hours environmental dangers; toxic chemicals; insufficient safety equipment harassment and abusive practices poor, miserable, deplorable, abominable, and inhuman
Pay	low wages minimum wage starvation wages not a living wage
Employment conditions	deceptive contracts precarious sub-contracts short contracts
Housing	shanty towns small dormitories huts sanitary problems
Workforce composition	young women migrants children
Worker organisation	dangerous risk to life harassment threat

Dismissing class: Media representations of workers’ conditions in the Global South

Published Online: Apr 07, 2021

Page range: 35 - 55

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0025

Keywords
transnational corporations, working conditions, Global South, critical discourse analysis, newspapers

© 2021 Vladimir Cotal San Martin, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Topics and sub-topics within the general theme “workers/working conditions”

Dismissing class: Media representations of workers’ conditions in the Global South

Published Online: Apr 07, 2021

Page range: 35 - 55

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0025

Keywordstransnational corporations, working conditions, Global South, critical discourse analysis, newspapers

© 2021 Vladimir Cotal San Martin, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Topics and sub-topics within the general theme “workers/working conditions”

Keywords
transnational corporations, working conditions, Global South, critical discourse analysis, newspapers