IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v48y2016i12p2484-2503.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Seeking security: Gay labour migration and uneven landscapes of work

Author

Listed:
  • Nathaniel M Lewis
  • Suzanne Mills

Abstract

Previous research has understood the migrations of gay men and other queer people through a lens of identity development, whereby relocation is driven by processes of coming out and consuming particular urban amenities. Meanwhile, labour geographers have largely overlooked sexuality, seeking to understand work-related migration in relation to gender, race, citizenship and the collective organization of workers. Drawing on the migration narratives of gay-identified men living in Ottawa, Canada, and Washington, DC, USA, we argue that the norms governing gender and sexuality within various workplaces, economic sectors and locales continuously influence migration related to work and inextricably linked processes of social reproduction. In particular, we explain how the affective needs of gay workers both deflect them from and attract them to particular locales and workplaces. In their migration destinations, gay workers tend to also transform the norms of social reproduction within workplaces and sectors. While gay workers may use migration to successfully negotiate the uneven landscapes of inclusion and visibility in North America, their agency is also constrained by the ongoing of regulation of sexuality in both workplaces and social and community environments.

Suggested Citation

  • Nathaniel M Lewis & Suzanne Mills, 2016. "Seeking security: Gay labour migration and uneven landscapes of work," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(12), pages 2484-2503, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:48:y:2016:i:12:p:2484-2503
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X16659773
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X16659773
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X16659773?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raven Molloy & Christopher L. Smith & Abigail Wozniak, 2011. "Internal Migration in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 173-196, Summer.
    2. Catherine Locke & Janet Seeley & Nitya Rao, 2013. "Migration and Social Reproduction at Critical Junctures in Family Life Course," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(10), pages 1881-1895, November.
    3. Geraldine Pratt, 1999. "From Registered Nurse to Registered Nanny: Discursive Geographies of Filipina Domestic Workers in Vancouver, B.C," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 75(3), pages 215-236, July.
    4. Black, Dan & Gates, Gary & Sanders, Seth & Taylor, Lowell, 2002. "Why Do Gay Men Live in San Francisco?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 54-76, January.
    5. Alan Collins, 2004. "Sexual Dissidence, Enterprise and Assimilation: Bedfellows in Urban Regeneration," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(9), pages 1789-1806, August.
    6. 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.
    7. Martinez, Larry R. & Hebl, Michelle R., 2010. "Additional Agents of Change in Promoting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Inclusiveness in Organizations," Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 82-85, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sean Waite & John Ecker & Lori E Ross, 2019. "A systematic review and thematic synthesis of Canada’s LGBTQ2S+ employment, labour market and earnings literature," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-20, October.
    2. Nathaniel M Lewis, 2017. "Canaries in the mine? Gay community, consumption and aspiration in neoliberal Washington, DC," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(3), pages 695-712, February.
    3. Sanghoon Lee, 2021. "Social Tolerance and Economic Development," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 1087-1103, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Amy Spring & Kayla Charleston, 2021. "Gentrification and the Shifting Geography of Male Same-Sex Couples," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(6), pages 1163-1194, December.
    2. Amin Ghaziani, 2015. "‘Gay Enclaves Face Prospect of Being PassÉ': How Assimilation Affects the Spatial Expressions of Sexuality in the United States," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 756-771, July.
    3. Alan Collins & Stephen Drinkwater, 2017. "Fifty shades of gay: Social and technological change, urban deconcentration and niche enterprise," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(3), pages 765-785, February.
    4. Nathaniel M Lewis, 2017. "Canaries in the mine? Gay community, consumption and aspiration in neoliberal Washington, DC," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(3), pages 695-712, February.
    5. Joseph G L Lee & Thomas Wimark & Kasim S Ortiz & Kerry B Sewell, 2018. "Health-related regional and neighborhood correlates of sexual minority concentration: A systematic review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, June.
    6. Kim, Dongsoo & Liu, Feng & Yezer, Anthony, 2009. "Do inter-city differences in intra-city wage differentials have any interesting implications?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 203-209, November.
    7. Shaun A. Golding & Richelle L. Winkler, 2020. "Tracking Urbanization and Exurbs: Migration Across the Rural–Urban Continuum, 1990–2016," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 39(5), pages 835-859, October.
    8. Eveline S. van Leeuwen & Viktor A. Venhorst, 2021. "Do households prefer to move up or down the urban hierarchy during an economic crisis?," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 263-289, April.
    9. Hicran Celikyay, 2017. "The Studies Through Smart Cities Model:The Case of Istanbul," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 6(1), pages 149-163, January.
    10. Kristiina Huttunen & Jarle Møen & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2018. "Job Loss and Regional Mobility," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(2), pages 479-509.
    11. Jepsen, Christopher & Jepsen, Lisa K., 2009. "Does home ownership vary by sexual orientation?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 307-315, May.
    12. Seonghee Min & Saheum Hong, 2021. "Fighting the wrong battle: the effects of immigrant inflows on domestic migration of natives versus settled immigrants in the USA," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 66(1), pages 57-74, February.
    13. Mangum, Kyle & Molloy, Raven, 2021. "Migration and Housing special issue: Introduction from Editors Kyle Mangum and Raven Molloy," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    14. François Cohen & Matthieu Glachant & Magnus Söderberg, 2017. "The cost of adapting to climate change: evidence from the US residential sector," Working Papers hal-01695171, HAL.
    15. Ben Klemens, 2022. "An analysis of US domestic migration via subset-stable measures of administrative data," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 351-382, May.
    16. Zovanga L Kone & Maggie Y Liu & Aaditya Mattoo & Caglar Ozden & Siddharth Sharma, 2018. "Internal borders and migration in India," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 729-759.
    17. Chloe Tarrabain & Robyn Thomas, 2024. "The Dynamics of Control of Migrant Agency Workers: Over-Recruitment, ‘The Bitchlist’ and the Enterprising-Self," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(1), pages 27-43, February.
    18. Lyon, Spencer G. & Waugh, Michael E., 2018. "Redistributing the gains from trade through progressive taxation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 185-202.
    19. Daniel Monte & Roberto Pinheiro, 2021. "Labor market competition over the business cycle," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(4), pages 1593-1615, October.
    20. Brian C. Cadena & Brian K. Kovak, 2016. "Immigrants Equilibrate Local Labor Markets: Evidence from the Great Recession," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 257-290, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:48:y:2016:i:12:p:2484-2503. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.