“I Came Here to Work, Not to Die”: Infrastructures of Migrant Labour Solidarity Across Taiwan's Urban Peripheries

Abstract This paper investigates the infrastructures that support migrant workers in pursuing fairer and more just employment experiences, despite structures that reproduce exploitative working conditions and keep them at the margins of society. Intervening at the intersection of infrastructural and labour geographies, I bring together the conceptual lenses of “infrastructures of solidarity” and the “urban periphery” to examine the production of spaces of praxis and political possibility for migrant workers across Taiwan's urban peripheries. Drawing on ethnographic research across Taoyuan, the city with the largest population of migrant workers, I show how such infrastructures consist of (counter)spaces and practices that facilitate the dissemination of (counter)knowledge through employment consultations, critical labour education efforts, and relationships grounded in solidarity. This paper also highlights the political potential of the urban periphery, marked by marginalisation but also a site where infrastructures of migrant labour solidarity challenge the temporary migration regime and fight for a more just migration landscape.