Syllabus/achievement requirements

* = the article is in a compendium

@= the article is available online

How to find an article on the reading list

Introduction

Key readings:

@Burgman, V. (2016) Globalization and Labour in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Routledge. Introduction. The Workers of the globalizing world, 1-14.

@Theodore, N. (2016) Worlds of work: changing landscapes of production and the new geographies of opportunity. Geography Compass, 10: 179-189.

Concept seminar: LABOUR AGENCY

Key readings:

@Coe, N. M., & Jordhus-Lier, D. C. (2011). Constrained agency? Re-evaluating the geographies of labour. Progress in Human Geography, 35(2), 211-233.

*Herod, A. (2001). Labor geographies: Workers and the landscapes of capitalism. Guilford Press, New York, pp. 13-49.

@Kiil, M. B., & Knutsen, H. M. (2016). Agency by exit: Swedish nurses and the “Not below 24,000” movement. Geoforum, 70, 105-114.

Additional readings:

@Alberti, G. (2014) Mobility strategies, mobility differentials and transnational exit: the experiences of precarious migrants in London’s hospitality jobs.  Work , Employment and Society 28(6): 865-881.

@Carswell, G., & De Neve, G. (2013). Labouring for global markets: Conceptualising labour agency in global production networks. Geoforum, 44, 62-70.

@Cumbers, A., Nativel, C., & Routledge, P. (2008). Labour agency and union positionalities in global production networks. Journal of Economic Geography, 8(3), 369-387.

*Katz, C. (2004). Growing up global: Economic restructuring and children's everyday lives. Univeristy of Minnesota Press, pp. 239-260.

@Lund-Thomsen, P. (2013). Labor agency in the football manufacturing industry of Sialkot, Pakistan. Geoforum, 44, 71-81.

*Cumbers, A. (2015). “Understanding labour’s agency under globalization”. In Rainnie, A., Herod, A., & McGrath-Champ, S. (eds). Putting Labour in its Place: Labour Process Analysis and Global Value Chains, Palgrave MacMillan, London, pp. 135-151

Concept seminar: LABOUR REGIME

Key readings:

Jonas, A.C. (2009) Labour control regime, in International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, edited by A.E.G. Jonas, R. Kitchin , and N. Thrift. Amsterdam: Elsevier; 59-65. (p? Canvas)

*Knutsen, H.M. & Hansson, E. (2010). Theoretical approaches to changing labour regimes in transition economies. In: Bergene, A.C, Endresen, S.B. & Knutsen, H.M. (eds). Missing links in labour geography. Farnham. Ashgate. 155-168.

*Rainnie, A., McGrath-Champ, S. & Herod, A. (2010). “Making Space for Geography in Labour Process Theory”. In: P. Thompson and C. Smith (eds). Working Life: Renewing Labour Process Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 297–315.

*Smith, C. (2010). Go with the flow: Labour power mobility and labour process theory. In P. Thompson & C. Smith (Eds.), Working life: Renewing labour process analysis. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 269-296.

Additional readings:

@Anner, M. (2015). Labour control regimes and workers resistance in global supply chains. Labour history, 56(3), 292-307.

*Burgmann, V. (2016) Globalization and Labour in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Routledge. Chapt 2. Confronting post-Fordist production, 34-53

@Chan, C. K.-C. & Ngai, P. (2009). The making of a new working class? A study of collective actions of migrant workers in South China. The China Quarterly, 198, 287-303.

@Ngai, P. & Smith, C. (2007). Putting transnational labour process in its place: the dormitory labour regime in post-socialist China. Work, Employment and Society, 21(1), 27-45.

@Jonas, A. E. (1996). Local labour control regimes: uneven development and the social regulation of production. Regional Studies, 30(4), 323-338.

@Thompson, P. (2010) The capitalist labour process - concepts and connections. Capital and Class, 34 (1): 7-14.

Concept seminar: POWER

Key readings:

*Silver, B. J. (2003). Forces of labor: workers' movements and globalization since 1870. Cambridge University Press, 1-25.

@von Holdt, K., & Webster, E. (2008). Organising on the periphery: new sources of power in the South African workplace. Employee Relations, 30(4), 333-354.

@Wright, E. O. (2000). Working-class power, capitalist-class interests, and class compromise. American Journal of Sociology, 957-1002.

Additional readings:

@Brookes, M. (2013). Varieties of Power in Transnational Labor Alliances An Analysis of Workers’ Structural, Institutional, and Coalitional Power in the Global Economy. Labor Studies Journal, 38(3), 181-200.

@Reid-Musson, E. (2014). Historicizing precarity: A labour geography of ‘transient’migrant workers in Ontario tobacco. Geoforum, 56, 161-171.

@Selwyn, B. (2011). Beyond firm-centrism: Re-integrating labour and capitalism into global commodity chain analysis. Journal of Economic Geography, 247-271.

Concept seminar: FRAGMENTATION

Key readings:

@Allen, J., & Henry, N. (1997). Ulrich Beck's risk society at work: labour and employment in the contract service industries. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 180-196.

Jordhus-Lier, D. C. (2016). Flexibilisierung als Fragmentierung: Der Kampf gegen Outsourcing im norwegischen Hotelsektor. In H. Holst and K. D?rre, Fragmentierte Belegschaften - Leiharbeit, Informalit?t und Soloselbst?ndigkeit in globaler Perspektive. Campus. (English version on Fronter).

@Reimer, S. (1999). “Getting by” in time and space: fragmented work in local authorities. Economic Geography, 75(2), 157-177.

Additional readings:

*Jordhus-Lier, D. C. (2014). Fragmentation revisited: flexibility, differentiation and solidarity in hotels. In Jordhus-Lier, D. C. and A. Underthun (eds), A hospitable world?: Organising work and workers in hotels and tourist resorts, Routledge, pp. 39-51.

@Reimer, Suzanne. "Working in a risk society." Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 23.1 (1998): 116-127.

@Tooke, J. (2000). Institutional power-geometries: enduring and shifting work relations in cleansing depots. Geoforum, 31(4), 567-574.

*Weil, D. (2014). The fissured workplace. Harvard University Press, pp. 1-27.

*Grimshaw, D., et al. (2005). Introduction: Fragmenting work across organizational boundaries. Fragmenting work: Blurring organizational boundaries and disordering hierarchies. M. Marchington, D. Grimshaw, J. Rubery and H. Willmott. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1-31.

@McDowell, L., Batnitzky, A., & D     yer, S. (2007). Division, segmentation, and interpellation: The embodied labors of migrant workers in a greater London hotel. Economic Geography, 83(1), 1-25.

@Kalleberg, A. L. (2003). Flexible firms and labor market segmentation effects of workplace restructuring on jobs and workers. Work and occupations, 30(2), 154-175.

Thematic seminar: domestic work

3 groups orientate themselves in three different contexts of domestic work:

Readings on Southeast Asia:

@Silvey, R. (2004). Transnational migration and the gender politics of scale: Indonesian domestic workers in Saudi. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 25(2), 141-155.

*Weix, G. G. (2000). Inside the home and outside the family: The domestic estrangement of Javanese servants. In K. M. Adams & S. Dickey (Eds.), Home and hegemony: Domestic service and identity politics in South and Southeast Asia. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 137-156.

Prabawati and Jordhus-Lier (2017). Mobilities and moralities of domestic work in Indonesian cities. In Ward, K. et al. (eds), Handbook on Spaces of Urban Politics (p? Fronter)

@Yeoh, B. S. A., Huang, S., & Gonzalez III, J. (1999). Migrant female domestic workers: Debating the economic, social and political impacts in Singapore. International Migration Review, 33(1), 114-136.

Readings on South Africa:

@Ally, Shireen (2008) Domestic Worker Unionisation in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Demobilisation and Depoliticisation by the Democratic State. Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, 35-1, 1-21

@Fish, N. Jennifer (2006b) Engendering Democracy: Domestic Labour and Coalition-Building in South Africa. Journal of Southern African Studies, 32:1, 107-127.

@Grossman, Jonathan (2011) Venturing Beyond: Domestic Work as Essential Public Service. South African Review of Sociology, 42:2, 134-141

Magwaza, Thenjiwe (2011) Effects of Domestic Workers Act in South Africa: A steep road to recognition. Agenda: Empowering women for gender equity, 22-78, 79-92. (p? Fronter)

Readings on North America:

@Varghese, L. (2006). Constructing a Worker Identity Class, Experience, and Organizing in Workers' Awaaz. Cultural Dynamics, 18(2), 189-211.

@Pratt, G. (1999). From registered nurse to registered nanny: Discursive geographies of Filipina domestic workers in Vancouver, B. C. Economic Geography, 75(3), 215-236.

@England, K., & Stiell, B. (1997). "They think you're as stupid as your English is": constructing foreign domestic workers in Toronto. Environment and Planning A, 29(2), 195-215.

@Rhee, N., & Zabin, C. (2009). Aggregating dispersed workers: Union organizing in the “care” industries. Geoforum, 40(6), 969-979.

 

Thematic seminar: informal labour (incl casualization, the precariat)

Key readings:

Chapter from Standings “The Precariat”, Chapters 1-2 (on Fronter)

*Lambert, R & Herod, A. (2016)  Neolibealism, precarious work and remaking the geography of global capitalism. Neoliberal capitalism and precarious work. Ethnographies of accommodation and resistance. Elgar: Cheltenham.  Chapt. 1,  1- 35

@Lindell, I. (2010). Informality and collective organising: identities, alliances and transnational activism in Africa. Third World Quarterly 31(2): 207-222. (16 pages)

@Lloyd-Evans, S. (2008). Geographies of the contemporary informal sector in the global south: gender, employment relationships and social protection. Geography Compass 2(6): 1885-1906. (22 pages)

Additional readings:

@Gallin, D. (2001). Propositions on trade unions and informal employment in times of globalisation. Antipode 33(3): 531-549. (19 pages)

*Joynt, K. & Webster, E. (2016) The growth and organization of  a precariat: working in the clothing industry in Johannesburg’s inner city  In: Lambert, R. & Herod, A. eds. Neoliberal capitalism and precarious work. Ethnographies of accommodation and resistance. Elgar: Cheltenham.  Chapt. 2,  43-72. 

@Kesteltoot, C., & Meert, H. (1999). Informal spaces: the geography of informal economic activities in Brussels. International journal of urban and regional research, 23(2), 232-251.

@Millstein, M., and Jordhus-Lier, D. (2012). Making communities work? Casual labour practices and local civil society dynamics in Delft, Cape Town. Journal of Southern African Studies 38(1): 183-201. (19 pages)

Thematic seminar: labour market intermediaries

Key readings:

@Vosko, L.F. (2009) Less than adequate: regulating temporary agency work in the EU in the face of an internal market in services.  Special Issue: Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2(3), 395-411.

@Benner, C. (2003). Labour flexibility and regional development: the role of labour market intermediaries. Regional Studies, 37(6-7), 621-633. (12 pages)

Additional readings:

@Theron, J. (2005). Intermediary or Employer-Labour Brokers and the Triangular Employment Relationship. Industrial Labour Journal, 26. (32 pages)

@Enright, B. (2013). (Re) considering new agents: a review of labour market intermediaries within labour geography. Geography Compass, 7(4), 287-299.

@Jordhus‐Lier, D., Coe, N. M., & Br?ten, S. T. (2015). Contested growth: the development of Norway's temporary staffing industry. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 97(1), 113-130.

@Heery, E. (2004). The trade union response to agency labour in Britain. Industrial Relations Journal, 35(5), 434-450.

@Coe, N. M., Johns, J., & Ward, K. (2009). Agents of casualization? The temporary staffing industry and labour market restructuring in Australia. Journal of Economic Geography, 9(1), 55-84.

Thematic seminar: digitalization of work (incl robotization and platform economies)

Key readings:

@McRobbie, A. (2002). Clubs to companies: Notes on the decline of political culture in speeded up creative worlds. Cultural studies, 16(4), 516-531.

*Dyer-Witheford, N. (2015). Cyber-proletariat: Global labour in the digital vortex. Between the Lines. Chapter 1.

@James, A. and B. Vira (2010). "‘Unionising’ the new spaces of the new economy? Alternative labour organising in India’s IT Enabled Services–Business Process Outsourcing industry." Geoforum 41(3): 364-376.

Additional readings:

@Graham, M., Straumann, R. K., & Hogan, B. (2015). Digital divisions of labor and informational magnetism: Mapping participation in Wikipedia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 105(6), 1158-1178.

@Schor, J. B., Fitzmaurice, C., Carfagna, L. B., & Attwood-Charles, W. (2016). Paradoxes of openness and distinction in the sharing economy. Poetics, 54, 66-81.

(Schor and Attwood-Charles probably have an article called “The Sharing Economy: labor, inequality and sociability on for-profit platforms” in Sociology Compass by the time we start SGO4604)

Video by Mark Graham: https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/video/digital-labour-and-development-new-knowledge-economies-or-digital-sweatshops/

 

Readings on labour and the politics of consumption (incl ethical consumption campaigns)

Key Readings:

@Johns, R., & Vural, L. (2000). Class, geography, and the consumerist turn: UNITE and the Stop Sweatshops Campaign. Environment and Planning A, 32(7), 1193-1213.

@Hartwick, E. R. (2000). Towards a geographical politics of consumption. Environment and planning A, 32(7), 1177-1192.

Additional Readings:

@Clarke, N., Barnett, C., Cloke, P., & Malpass, A. (2007). Globalising the consumer: Doing politics in an ethical register. Political Geography, 26(3), 231-249.

@Clarke, N. (2008). From ethical consumerism to political consumption. Geography Compass, 2(6), 1870-1884.

Webster, J., & Randle, K. (2016). Positioning Virtual Workers Within Space, Time, and Social Dynamics. In Virtual Workers and the Global Labour Market (pp. 3-34). Palgrave Macmillan UK. (on Fronter)

Published Nov. 8, 2017 10:02 AM - Last modified Jan. 11, 2018 12:32 PM