A Transnational Field Approach to the Study of Labor Trafficking

Labor trafficking has increasingly become a subject of policy and research due to the rise in cross-border mobility and globalization. Whereas labor trafficking is generally approached through a criminal justice frame of transnational organized crime, in this contribution, a broader transnational social field approach is advocated. It is argued that this does more justice to the complex interconnectedness of contemporary reality and allows us to understand better how vulnerability on which human trafficking feeds is created. It is argued that a transnational field approach to labor trafficking allows us to understand better the different forms in which labor trafficking comes and the different ways in which transnational space plays a role in these. The Netherlands is used as an empirical illustration. It is illustrative of how transnational space plays a different role in three types of labor trafficking. For each type, three phases in the labor trafficking process are scrutinized: recruitment, transportation, and the phase of work. It is concluded that it would be helpful to approach labor trafficking not solely from a criminal justice perspective of transnational organized crime but to also include more locally rooted approaches from a labor migration perspective, including a transnational field approach.