A Value Theory of Inclusion: Informal Labour, the Homeworker, and the Social Reproduction of Value

Critically engaging with Marxist-Feminist debates, this article argues that only interpretations of social reproduction as value-producing capture the features of contemporary informalised labour relations. Building on early social reproduction analyses and informed by debates in political economy of development and feminist geography, the article sketches a "value theory of inclusion" premised on the centrality of all labour to value-generation; accounting for different forms of exploitation; and stressing the dynamic interpenetration of production and reproduction in processes of labour-surplus extraction. By re-centring the geographical focus on the global South, the article illustrates this interpenetration by identifying three reproductive mechanisms of value-generation, based on: industrial housing arrangements; spatial processes of externalisation of reproductive costs across urban-rural divides; and processes of formal subsumption of labour, analysed with special reference to women homeworkers in India. An inclusive theorisation of value-generation is crucial for the development of inclusive politics, recognising exploitation in its varied manifestations.