Contribution short abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic work in a German packaging factory, this research investigates how labour, worth, and belonging are relationally negotiated in migration and factory work, raising ethical and political questions about "value", “commonness” and "human worth".

Contribution long abstract:

Earlier analyses have demonstrated how in the context of East-West mobilities, European colonial history, racism, and neoliberal policies have disproportionately relegated migrants from Europe’s East to low-status jobs, exposing them to exploitation in the labour market. But how do these racialised hierarchies of worth and structural inequalities shape people’s sense of self, belonging, and human value? How are these dynamics reflected in the understandings of “proper, valuable work” in contrast to notions of social waste and disposability?

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in a male-dominated German packaging factory, this study examines how precarity affects the ways men from “Europe’s East” perceive and navigate their social status, as well as their ideas of sociality and commonness. Frequently dismissed by local German managers as an unfamiliar “subculture” lacking a genuine work ethic and undermining proper labour norms, these factory workers remain rooted in their positions while negotiating their perceived insignificance. They do so by upholding a morality centered on hard work and ingenuity, constructing alternative conceptions and hierarchies of human value that embody their own ambiguous forms of belonging.

By analysing the notion of “disposable bodies”, narratives of “feeling less than human”, and the strategies employed to cope with these experiences, this ethnography contributes to ongoing discussions on the gendered and racialised dimensions of belonging, commonness, and human value in precarious labour contexts.