Places of Work, Scales of Organising: A Review of Labour Geography

Abstract

Labour has for a long time been an important concept in economic geography, but more often as a cost that influences investment decisions than as a social force in its own right. Recently, however, some geographers have begun putting the politics of labour at the forefront of the analysis. Labour geography can be understood as a discernible strand of research which, throughout the last decade or so, has begun to emerge from a wider Anglo‐American Marxist‐inspired geography tradition. In this article, I will critically review this emerging literature, which represents a fresh approach to the recent changes in the world of work and to the close relationships between workers, firms, the state and the wider community. Particularly interesting – from a geographical point of view – are the strategies of organised labour in creating new scales of organising, and in rethinking old ones.

Towards resonant places: reflections on the organizing strategy of the International Transport Workers’ Federation

“…Herod, 2001;McCallum, 2014). For many within the labour geography literature, the inability of scholars to connect these isolated cases to broader patterns in the powergeometry of capital-labour relations (and not least the continued structural weakening of trade unions) has called into question labour geography's early claims about how the agency of labour (and specifically collectively organized workers) shapes economic landscapes (Coe & Jordhus-Lier, 2011;Lier, 2007;Rutherford, 2010). 2 The ITF's experience of developing networks in the ports and logistics sector potentially enhances such concerns.…”

Labouring for global markets: Conceptualising labour agency in global production networks

“…While much of the GPN literature has similarly paid less attention to labour, there is a rapidly expanding body of literature within labour geography that argues for a more committed study of labour and labour agency within the context of global capitalism (Castree, 2007;Lier, 2007;Coe et al, 2008;Coe and Jodhus-Lier, 2010). This scholarship also considers new approaches to the study of labour employed within GPNs, and particularly in the context of neo-liberal labour market restructuring (see e.g.…”

Jumping Scale and Bridging Space in the Era of Corporate Social Responsibility: cross-border labour struggles in the global garment industry

“…They also manifest themselves via wildcat strikes, absence, acts of despair and the individual life choices made by workers, for example when workers use migration as a spatial strategy 'to counteract the unevenness of capitalism'. 11 The aggregate result of these struggles-their history, dynamic, institutionalisation, etc-ensures that each 'place where production touches down is instantiated differently'. 12 Scholars of industrial relations tell us that management can exercise a variety of strategies to control and discipline workers.…”