+++ Apologies for cross-posting +++
CALL FOR PAPERS
*Labour, migration and brokers*
**
Global Conference on Economic Geography
July 24–28 2018, University of Cologne
Organisers: Huey Shy Chau, Jennifer Steiner, Karin Schwiter
(University of Zurich)
In many contexts around the world, the services of brokers play a
decisive role in enabling labour migration. Even in spaces of relatively
free movements, such as within Europe, labour brokers have been gaining
importance. Our session examines this ‘middle space of labour migration’
(Lindquist, Xiang and Yeoh 2012).
The term broker here refers to a party that mediates between other
parties, such as between employers and workers (ibid.). It encompasses
various forms of brokers including temporary staffing agencies, agencies
that hire migrant workers for specialised services (such as for live-in
care), and informal brokers. Our session aims at exploring the role of
labour brokering in relation to migration in a variety of contexts.
Papers may address (but are not limited to) the following questions:
·How is labour migration brokered in different geographical and
regulatory contexts?
·In what ways do labour brokers shape working conditions of migrant workers?
·How do labour brokers influence the organisation of migrant workers’
movements and migrant workers’ agency?
·What are labour brokers’ roles in shifting constellations of migration
control?
·In what ways do brokering services enable the emergence of specific
transnational labour arrangements, migration channels and geographies?
·What are the institutional and regulatory contexts in which labour
migration brokers emerge?
·In what ways do labour migration brokers shape (labour) markets?
·How can focuses on labour migration brokers contribute to understanding
current processes of social transformation?
Please submit a 250-words abstract online through the conference website
between November 15th 2017 and March 15th 2018:
https://www.gceg2018.com/call-for-sessions-and-papers.html
For further inquiry feel free to contact us:
Huey Shy (hueyshy.c...@geo.uzh.ch)
Jennifer Steiner (jennifer.stei...@geo.uzh.ch
<mailto:jennifer.stei...@geo.uzh.ch>)
References:
Lindquist, Johan, Biao Xiang, and Brenda S.A. Yeoh. 2012. ‘Opening the
Black Box of Migration: Brokers, the Organization of Transnational
Mobility and the Changing Political Economy in Asia’. Pacific Affairs 85
(1):7–19.
--
Huey Shy Chau Ph.D.
SNSF Early Postdoc.Mobility Fellow, Yale-NUS College Singapore
Affiliated researcher, Department of Geography, University of Zurich
Mobile Singapore +65 83 46 17 93
Mobile Switzerland +41 79 778 47 85
newpublications:
Chau, Huey Shy, Katharina Pelzelmayer, and Karin Schwiter. 2017.
‘Short-Term Circular Migration and Gendered Negotiation of the Right to
the City: The Case of Migrant Live-in Care Workers in Basel,
Switzerland’. /Cities. The international journal of urban policy and
planning./ Online first.
