Re-Inscribing Gender Relations through Employment-Related Geographical Mobility: The Case of Newfoundland Youth in Resource Extraction

Abstract

Despite the popular representation of the masculine hero migrant (Ni Laoire, 2001), rural youth scholars have found that young men are more likely to stay on in their communities, while young women tend to be more mobile, leaving for education and better employment opportunities elsewhere (Corbett, 2007b;Lowe, 2015). Taking a spatialized approach (Farrugia, Smyth & Harrison, 2014), we contribute to and extend the rural youth studies scholarship on gender, mobilities and place by considering the case of young Newfoundlanders' geographical mobilities in relation to male-dominated resource extraction industries. We draw on findings from two SSHRC-funded research projects, the Rural Youth and Recovery project, a subcomponent of the Community-University Research for Recovery Alliance (CURRA) and the Youth, Apprenticeship and Mobility project, a subcomponent of the On the Move Partnershi We argue that the spatial coding of gender relations in rural Newfoundland makes certain kinds of mobilities more intelligible and possible for young men, while constraining women's. In other words, gender relations of rural places are "stretched out" (Farrugia et al., 2014) across space through the mobility practices of young men and women in relation to work in skilled trades and resource extraction industries. These "stretched out" gender relations are reproduced by the organisation of a sector that relies on a mobile workforce free from care and domestic work and familiar with manual work.

“(Im)mobile Precarity” Among Young People in Newfoundland and Labrador

“…In fact, the movement of youth away from rural places has been called a migration or mobility "imperative" (Corbett, 2005;Farrugia, 2016). This body of work has also found that rural to urban moves are gendered and classed (Bjarnason & Thorlindsson, 2006;Power & Norman, 2019). For example, employment in rural areas tends to be concentrated in male-dominated sectors, including resource extraction and agriculture, which favour young men and enable pathways for mobilities to other places with similar industries.…”

Beating Broke by Getting Out? Examining the Relationship Between Personal Debt and Community-Outmigration

“…Both Corbett (2007a) and Norman and Power (2015) found that for young women living in Atlantic Canada, upward mobility was associated with outward mobility, especially in terms of formal education. In a more recent study, Power and Norman (2019) examine how gender relations in rural areas inform possible mobilities, particularly in the context of resource extraction industries. Embedded practices over the life course result in conventions of men working outdoors with their hands, and in contrast, women working indoors, often in positions where they provide care and services to others.…”