外文译文范例

外文资料

Rural Labor Movements in Egypt and Their Impact on

the State, 1961-1992

Looney, Robert

James Toth's highly informative study of Egypt develops the idea that the tarahil or migrant farm workers in Egypt unexpectedly contributed to the making of Egypt's recent history and in shaping the country's national development. His arguments are developed by first examining the struggles taking place inside the rural regime of accumulation and the methods of control each side employed to regulate conflicts over pay and working conditions. This involves not only describing the workers' way of life, standard of living, and the labor processes in both village agriculture and migrant labor, but also identifying the asymmetric relationships and negotiations involved in mutually defining the effort price formula.

Toth demonstrates how initially these institutional relations remained local since direct state intervention was relatively limited before the 1960s. Once the state did step in, however, local conflicts diminished while the struggles between workers and their government acquired greater importance. State policies formulated since 1960 repeatedly altered the equation between labor and capital. Toth then shows that the struggle between the government and those who opposed its regulation then became an important motor force in creating Egypt's recent history.

Following a carefully laid out introduction, Chapter 2 describes a composite migrant labor trip to work sites on the perimeter of Egypt's northern Delta region where the author conducted field-work in 1980-82. Here the emphasis is placed on introducing the migrant farm workers, describing the variety of social and economic relationships that keep these laborers at the bottom of Egypt's social pyramid. Chapter 3 examines why poor village farm laborers in Egypt repeatedly take up migrant work. In this section the author demonstrates that rural workers in Egypt are channeled into this occupation by the limitations imposed by seasonal unemployment, debt, gender stereotypes, and the country's economic underdevelopment. Chapter 4 develops the methods by which migrant workers exercise some control over valorization by using "weapons of the weak" and other stealth techniques, which enable them to overcome their hardship and poverty.

In general, these early chapters discuss the rural regime of accumulation and the local mode of regulation found in the countryside, bridging both village agriculture and migrant labor camp activities. Toth finds these conditions replicated throughout the Egyptian countryside, both north and south. This general picture provides insights into the myriad of tactics and techniques that