Feminist Materalism and the Laws of Social Reproduction

The asymmetries of care and domestic work, currently debated widely in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, are well documented. Capitalism’s core dependence upon the exploitation of socially reproductive labour extends from the home to the workplace. It is fed by patterns of exploitation replicated globally, from slavery to migrant workers. With this background in mind, integrating social reproduction theory into feminist jurisprudence is useful for analysing the increased legal and political complexities of the global labour market and the myriad social relations that sustain it, as well as how these systems of exploitation exist at the intersections of class, gender, race, and nationality. This chapter explores gendered materialisms in law to gain a clearer understanding of the role of legal norms and mechanisms as strategies of domination and accumulation.