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Labour Geography: A Work in Progress

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  • NOEL CASTREE

Abstract

This short essay takes stock of where the field of ‘labour geography’ has got to and where it might productively go. The first part identifies labour geography's signature characteristics as they have emerged over the last 15–20 years. These are its insistence that geography is constitutive of employment issues, its emphasis on worker agency, its analytical promiscuousness, its acute awareness of power and inequality, and its Left sensibility politically speaking. The second part of the essay is programmatic and looks to the future. It is argued that labour geographers ought to more carefully conceptualize and study worker agency; to connect labour migration more organically with existing research on place‐based workers; to develop a more substantive understanding of how states regulate employment and workers’ lives; to look to synthesize different geographical dimensions of worker existence and strategy; to aim to examine working peoples’ lives holistically; and to be more explicit about the normative basis of their ‘pro‐labour’ stance and its implications for worker strategy. Résumé Ce texte court examine ce qui a été réalisé dans le domaine de la ‘géographie du travail’ et les orientations fructueuses qui pourraient être suivies. La première partie détermine les traits identitaires de la géographie du travail qui ont vu le jour au cours des 15 à 20 dernières années: son insistance pour que la géographie soit partie prenante dans les questions d'emploi, son accent sur l'agence des travailleurs, sa promiscuité analytique, sa conscience aiguë du pouvoir et de l'inégalité, et sa sensibilité de gauche au plan politique. La seconde partie, programmatique, s'intéresse à l'avenir et à ce que les géographes du travail devraient faire: conceptualiser et étudier l'agence des travailleurs avec davantage de rigueur; relier de façon plus organique la migration du travail et les recherches existantes sur la main‐d'œuvre locale; offrir une compréhension concrète de la manière dont les Etats régulent l'emploi et la vie des actifs; veiller à synthétiser les différentes dimensions géographiques dans l'existence et la stratégie des salariés; chercher à analyser globalement la vie des populations actives; être plus explicite sur le fond normatif de leur attitude ‘pro‐travail’ et sur ses implications pour la stratégie des salariés.

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  • Noel Castree, 2007. "Labour Geography: A Work in Progress," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 853-862, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:31:y:2007:i:4:p:853-862
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00761.x
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    2. Iazzolino, Gianluca, 2021. "Going Karura: colliding subjectivities and labour struggle in Nairobi’s gig economy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 110950, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Tom Barratt & Caleb Goods & Alex Veen, 2020. "‘I’m my own boss…’: Active intermediation and ‘entrepreneurial’ worker agency in the Australian gig-economy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(8), pages 1643-1661, November.
    4. Schmidt Suntje & Brinks Verena & Brinkhoff Sascha, 2014. "Innovation and creativity labs in Berlin," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 58(1), pages 232-247, October.
    5. Tod D. Rutherford, 2009. "Spaces of Work: Global Capitalism and Geographies of Labour – By Noel Castree, Neil Coe, Kevin Ward and Michael Samer," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 868-870, September.
    6. Roos Pijpers, 2009. "European Labour Markets And The Cultural‐Economic Geography Of Flexwork," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 100(1), pages 121-126, February.
    7. William C. Terry, 2009. "Working on the Water: On Legal Space and Seafarer Protection in the Cruise Industry," Economic Geography, Clark University, vol. 85(4), pages 463-482, October.
    8. Robert Huggins & Piers Thompson, 2019. "The behavioural foundations of urban and regional development: culture, psychology and agency," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 121-146.
    9. Barbara Ellen Smith, 2016. "Life with mother and Marx: Work, gender, and class revisited (again)," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(10), pages 2085-2088, October.
    10. Philippa Williams & Al James & Fiona McConnell & Bhaskar Vira, 2017. "Working at the margins? Muslim middle class professionals in India and the limits of ‘labour agency’," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(6), pages 1266-1285, June.
    11. Ruth Barton, 2021. "Trade unions and industrial regeneration in North West Tasmania: Moving beyond lock-in?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(2), pages 332-348, March.
    12. Yunji Kim & Austin M Aldag & Mildred E Warner, 2021. "Blocking the progressive city: How state pre-emptions undermine labour rights in the USA," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(6), pages 1158-1175, May.
    13. Thomas Hastings & Danny MacKinnon, 2017. "Re-embedding agency at the workplace scale: Workers and labour control in Glasgow call centres," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(1), pages 104-120, January.
    14. Ding Fei & Abdi Ismail Samatar & Chuan Liao, 2018. "Chinese–African encounters in high†tech sectors: Comparative investigation of Chinese workplace regimes in Ethiopia," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S1), pages 455-475, March.
    15. Celal Cahit Ağar & Steffen Böhm, 2018. "Towards a pluralist labor geography: Constrained grassroots agency and the socio-spatial fix in Dȇrsim, Turkey," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(6), pages 1228-1249, September.
    16. Fei, Ding, 2020. "Variegated work regimes of Chinese investment in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    17. Paul Bocking, 2018. "Labor geographies of socially embedded work: The multi scalar resistance of Mexican teachers," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(8), pages 1670-1687, November.
    18. Katie J Wells & Kafui Attoh & Declan Cullen, 2021. "“Just-in-Place†labor: Driver organizing in the Uber workplace," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(2), pages 315-331, March.
    19. Zhenshan Yang, 2023. "Human capital space: a spatial perspective of the dynamics of people and economic relationships," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, December.
    20. Elena Baglioni, 2018. "Labour control and the labour question in global production networks: exploitation and disciplining in Senegalese export horticulture," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 111-137.
    21. Linda Mcdowell & Adina Batnitzky & Sarah Dyer, 2009. "Precarious Work and Economic Migration: Emerging Immigrant Divisions of Labour in Greater London's Service Sector," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(1), pages 3-25, March.

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