Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

6-2026

Abstract

What social processes are required not only to recruit workers, but to repeatedly assemble and deliver labor power as a usable commodity in the specific quantity, quality, and timing demanded by capitalist production? In the commercial mushroom cultivation in rural China studied here, this problem is solved through a distinctive form of informal intermediation – just-in-time brokerage – carried out by female labor brokers who organize the supply of village women’s casual labor. Drawing on qualitative field research, we show that brokerage here goes beyond recruiting semi-proletarianized rural women into wage work and revolves primarily around “provisioning”: assembling packages of labor power in the right volume, coordinating rapid deployment at the right time, and maintaining the labor reserve. Conceptually, this paper theorizes brokers’ “commodification work” – the procurement and provisioning of casual labor for employers – as a form of social reproductive labor that is gendered and under-paid, helps make capitalist agriculture operational, and subsidizes capital accumulation.

Keywords

labor commodification, labor market intermediation, informal brokers, casual wage work, capitalist agriculture, social reproductive labor

Discipline

Rural Sociology | Sociology

Research Areas

Sociology

Areas of Excellence

Growth in Asia

Publication

Agriculture and Human Values

Volume

43

Issue

115

First Page

1

Last Page

18

ISSN

0889-048X

Identifier

10.1007/s10460-026-10934-1

Publisher

Springer

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-026-10934-1

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