Coercive Geographies: Historicizing Mobility, Labor and Confinement

Abstract

Responding to the deteriorating situation of migrants today and the complex assemblages of the geographies they navigate, Coercive Geographies examines historical and contemporary forms of coercion and constraint exercised by a wide range of actors in diverse settings. It links the question of spatial con nes to that of labor. This fraught nexus of mobility and work seems self-evidently relevant to explore. Coercive Geographies is our attempt to bring together space, precarity, labor coercion and mobility in an analytical lens. Precarity emerges in particular geographical and historical contexts, which are decisive for how it is shaped. The book analyzes coercive geographies as localized and spatialized intersections between labor regulations and migration policies, which become detrimental to existing mobility frameworks.

Coercive geographies: Biopower, spatial politics, and the tourist

“…The pervasiveness of such “coercive geographies” (Heinsen et al, 2021) and consumption-focused biopolitical technologies, however, does not mean a total usurping of personal autonomy of Chinese tourists. Ong and Du Cros (2012), for instance, documented how short-term “backpacking” and budget tourists from the mainland consistently utilize Macao’s spaces for their hiking, cycling and general sightseeing activities, even having the “audacity” of repurposing casinos as a free storage facility for their heavy backpacks in pre-pandemic days.…”

“…It commodifies Indigenous land, forcibly displaces people, transforms space into territory, legitimizes militarization and propagates structural violence against human and nonhuman life (Bluwstein, 2017; Büscher and Fletcher, 2017; Fletcher et al, 2023; Rowen, 2021; Yang, 2020). Tourism produces various “coercive geographies” (Heinsen et al, 2021: 12) which are spaces of restriction limiting people’s mobility and forcing them to labor precariously (Floros and Jørgensen, 2020), while modern slavery proliferates throughout the tourism supply chain (Cheer, 2018).…”

“…The final contribution, from Chih-Chen Trista Lin, considers how the Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union in Taiwan resisted and responded to various biopolitical mandates that reinforced highly gendered forms of hospitality. Throughout, we leverage Heinsen et al’s (2021: 12) conceptualization of coercive geographies as “spatialities that work to create moments of coercion through practices that limit or otherwise define the mobility of a subject”. In the main, this symposium interrogates the coercive power of tourism, how it figures in the goal of producing healthy, productive citizens and consumers, and the influence of biopower on spaces of tourism consumption and mobility.…”