Constrained agency? Re-evaluating the geographies of labour

Abstract

This article critically evaluates the concept of labour agency. First, we briefly reprise structure/agency debates in human geography in order to distil how agency is best conceived. Second, we propose a more discerning approach to labour agency that unpacks its many spatial and temporal dimensions. Third, we develop a ‘re-embedded’ notion of labour agency and identify global production networks, the state, the community and labour market intermediaries as key arenas for consideration. The paper argues that worker strategies must always be assessed in relation to these wider social relations, suggesting a constrained, variegated notion of labour agency.

Social upgrading in developing country industrial clusters: A reflection on the literature

“…Trade unions can also actively campaign for growth and competitive strategies consistent with a capacity to raise social conditions (Coe and Jordhus-Lier, 2011). They can act in partnership with employers' organizations, government and others in local jobs pacts and in the promotion of productivity improvements and value adding development strategies that help to move enterprises away from price driven cheap labour strategies (Pyke, 2010).…”

“…In fact the worlds of employment and community life often overlap, especially, perhaps, in developing countries (Coe and Jordhus-Lier, 2011). For example, in these countries especially, much work is carried out in the home and so physical living conditions impact on working productivity (Pyke, 2009).…”

Stepping up to strike: a union mobilization case study of Polish migrant workers in the Netherlands

“…Agency is always agency toward something, the ways in which actors shape their relationships with surrounding persons, places, meanings and events (Emirbayer and Mische 1998: 973). To analyse the agency of migrant construction workers, this chapter draws, following studies in labour geography (Coe and Jordhus-Lier 2011;Carswell and De Neve 2013;Sportel 2013), on the disaggregated conceptualisation of agency developed by Katz (2004). Katz's theoretical approach analyses a wide variety of (small-scale) social practices and not only large-scale protests and manifest, organised acts of resistance.…”

‘Labour Chains’: Analysing the Role of Labour Contractors in Global Production Networks

“…The role of labour has largely been overlooked in both GVC and GPN analysis (Barrientos, Dolan et al 2003;Pegler and Knorringa 2007;Cumbers, Nativel et al 2008;Coe and Jordhus-Lier 2010). An important consequence of the emergence of global value chains is that the determinants of labour supply and demand are increasingly external to national labour markets, and can be affected by the decisions of global buyers operating beyond their borders.…”