Spaces of Work and Everyday Life: Labour Geographies and the Agency of Unorganised Temporary Migrant Workers

Abstract

In this study, I focus on the agency of unorganised temporary migrant workers -people who travel away to work for just a few weeks or months. Such workers have been relatively neglected in labour geography. Perhaps surprisingly, given the focus on the agency of capital in much of his writing, I build on two arguments made by David Harvey. First, workers' spatial mobility is complex and may involve short as well as longer term migrations, and secondly that this can have significance both materially and in relation to the subjective experience of employment. The spatial embeddedness of temporary migrant workers' everyday lives can be a resource for shaping landscapes (and ordinary histories) of capitalism, even though any changes may be short-lived and take place at the micro-scale. The article is illustrated with case study material from research with workers in the agriculture sector in India and the UK, and concludes with more general implications for labour geographers engaged with other sectors and places.

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

“…Not only is pay low and work seasonal, but Dalits are routinely stigmatised and discriminated against by their employers, and so they are keen to escape localised relations of dependency and patronage (Rogaly, 2009). For many of them, the very act of migrating or commuting is a means of escaping rural ties, gaining a sense of dignity, and achieving a degree of economic and social independence (Rogaly 2009, Author, DateC).…”

Agency by exit: Swedish nurses and the “Not below 24,000” movement

“…At the other end of the continuum, labour agency results in ''small" changes in everyday lives when small, informal and ad hoc organised groups of workers challenge or pressure their employer in different ways, for instance to obtain better meals or to get paid as agreed upon. While seemingly small from a societal perspective, such improvement could be essential to workers concerned (Rogaly, 2009). This represents a broader understanding of agency and outcome than was common in labour geography's early phase.…”

Feeling precarious: Millennial women and work

“…Recent work in labour geography has called for greater research on the subjective experiences of workers as part of understanding their agency (Coe and Jordhus-Lier, 2011;Lier, 2007) and this article brings a social geographer's lens to this aim (see also Rogaly, 2009). McDowell's (2007McDowell's ( , 2007Hardgrove et al, 2015b;McDowell et al, 2014) ongoing concern with work identities has been invaluable to the framing of this research, interrogating the intersection of social categories of difference including age and gender at work.…”