Working Borders: Linking Debates About Insourcing and Outsourcing of Capital and Labor

Abstract

On February 10 and 11, 2005, the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice held its inaugural conference, "Working Borders: Linking Debates About Insourcing and Outsourcing of Capital and Labor." The event brought together lawyers, economists, historians, and policy makers from the University of Texas and from around the country to examine critically contemporary proposals about immigration and outsourcing and to begin to analyze the ways in which each implicates how we understand work and citizenship. Participants also probed how different proposed policies might affect the extent to which workers are enfranchised in a global economy. The conference was the first of its kind to relate the growing public debates over "outsourcing"-the movement of "American" jobs and capital overseas-to "insourcing"-the migration of workers into the United States.