Ch. Assoc Prof. Dr Raya Apostolova’s monography Capitalism and Migration: Freeing and Hunting of Labor Power Across the European Union (“Prof. Marin Drinov” Publishing House of BAS ) is out of print. In her book, Dr Apostolova argues that social scientists must go beyond set legal categories in the field of migration and instead explore the spaces (historical, ideological, socio-political) of their practice. Instead of treating migration categories as a starting point, the author approaches them as an outcome. Through a historical reading of the political conjunctures and processes accompanying two main forms of migration in the European Union – freedom of movement and the European asylum system – Apostolova shows the formation of a class for which there is no other way of livelihood than to move internationally. She positions this formation in the temporal gap between migration and labour apparatuses, or, between moments of border crossing and the commodification of labour power. In this temporal gap, Apostolova explores the conflictual and tense relationship between migration and capitalism.
The book is open-access and can be found on the publisher’s website.