Labour geographers have recently highlighted the connections between precarity and migration of workers at many sites around the world (Coe, 2013). The subdiscipline has developed renewed focus on the experience of migrant workers as they strive to overcome the challenges of deteriorating working conditions under intensified work-place regimes (Wills et al, 2010; McDowell, 2013). These trends are most evident in, but not exclusive to, workers in low-waged and/or low-status jobs, or jobs that are regulated as "low-skilled", including hospitality, construction, retail, agriculture, food processing and social care. This is a call for papers that explore the causes and consequences of the concentration or clustering of migrant workers in precarious working conditions, and how this impacts the ability of these workers to construct their daily lives within their adopted city or location. Papers that make the workplace the point of departure for understanding workers’ daily experiences would be welcomed as would be those that focus on workplace discrimination; access to benefits, good housing and transportation; and relationships within and outside the workplace. We also welcome papers based on research using single or multiple methods including census analysis, surveys, ethnography and/or life history interviews. Papers are encouraged that explore workers' experiences in a manner that contribute something (beyond simply offering new empirical case studies) to a) methodological innovations/discussions about how to explore workplace/workers' experience; b) efforts to theorize migrants' agency that unpack the spatial, structural and/or conditions that constrain or enable particular forms of agency; c) explore workers' experiences as a means to theorize precariousness beyond immigration status and employment conditions. Studies based on research sites across the globe, including provincial cities, rural sites, and large cities in the global north and south, will be welcome.
Keywords: migrant labour, workplace experience, segmentation, agency, precarious working conditions Siobhan McPhee, University of British Columbia Michelle Buckley, University of Toronto Ben Rogaly, University of Sussex Please send abstracts of up to 250 words to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> by October 20th [NB early bird discount ends of Oct 23rd] References: Coe, N. (2013). Geographies of production III: making space for labour, Progress in Human Geography, 37 (2): 271-284. McDowell, L. (2013). Working Lives: Gender, Migration and Employment in Britain 1945-2007, London: Wiley-Blackwell. Wills, J. et al. (2010). Global Cities at Work - New Migrant Divisions of Labour London: Pluto Press. Dr. Siobhán McPhee Instructor Department of Geography Room 124 1984 West Mall University of British Columbia Vancouver V6T 1Z1 Canada Telephone: (1) 604-827-2078 Email: [email protected] Geography Instructor Vantage College Room 171 Choi Building 1855 West Mall University of British Columbia Vancouver V6T 1Z1 Canada Telephone: (1) 604-827-2077 Email: [email protected]
