The Role of Discourse Analysis in Researching Severe Labour Exploitation

Caruana, Robert

Abstract

Investigating severe forms of labour exploitation presents a series of particular methodological challenges to researchers in the field, including access to respondents, credibility of data, reliability of measures, researcher ethics and the practical and political dimensions of study design. For researchers embarking on qualitative approaches – whether it involves interviews, ethnography and/or documentary forms of analysis – this chapter seeks to illuminate the potential of a discursive approach to understanding severe forms of labour exploitation. It aims specifically to help understand how severe forms of labour exploitation are variously constructed as an object of knowledge/s, and how this construction is always contingent upon socio-political con/texts. To this end it recommends the investigation of texts as data, proceeding to discuss some interpretive work generated from an early-stage analysis of media, government and civil society discourses surrounding the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Citation

Caruana, R. (2018). The Role of Discourse Analysis in Researching Severe Labour Exploitation. In G. LeBaron (Ed.), Researching Forced Labour in the Global Economy, Methodological Challenges and AdvancesOxford University Press

• Acceptance Date: Sep 30, 2018
• Publication Date: Dec 21, 2018
• Deposit Date: Dec 17, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 22, 2020
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Book Title: Researching Forced Labour in the Global Economy, Methodological Challenges and Advances
• Chapter Number: 10
• ISBN: 9780197266472
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1419360
• Publisher URL: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/researching-forced-labour-in-the-global-economy-9780197266472?cc=gb&lang=en&#
• Related Public URLs: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/researching-forced-labour-in-the-global-economy-9780197266472?cc=gb&lang=en&