• Inactive for Year: 2024/25

• Module Leader(s): Professor Al James

• Owning School: Geography, Politics & Sociology
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

1. To explore the geographical diversity of people's everyday struggles to make a living in the contemporary global economy.

2. To introduce students to an exciting ‘labour geographies’ research agenda, that builds on and extends key concepts in Economic Geography and Globalisation and Development developed in Stage 2.

3. To demonstrate how ‘labour’ is much more than a passive input to firms’ production processes, and how different groups of workers are capable of actively fashioning the geography of capitalism to suit their own needs and self-reproduction.

4. To decenter the ‘mainstream’ (Western-focused) labour geographies research agenda through new empirical engagements with different groups of workers working within, between and across the global North and global South, and through new intellectual collaborations with development geographers.

5. To encourage students to recognise and challenge the spatial limits of mainstream 'universal' theories in geography which presume that 'the economy' can be theorised solely from the perspective of the formal spaces of advanced capitalist economies in the global North.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module explores the economic-development geographies of people's everyday struggles to make a living in the contemporary global economy. Drawing on research within and across the Global North and Global South, this module engages with an exciting 'labour geographies' research agenda, concerned with how workers are capable of fashioning the geography of capitalism to suit their own needs and self-production; and to identify geographical possibilities and labour market strategies through which ‘workers may challenge, outmanoeuvre and perhaps even beat capital’ in different locations. The module seeks to expose the spatial limits of mainstream 'universal' theories in geography which presume that 'the economy' and 'labour' can be theorised solely from the perspective of the formal spaces of advanced capitalist economies in the global North.

The module is split into 4 main blocks: (1) new worlds of work; (2) postcolonial working lives; (3) alternative work futures; and (4) globalizing labour geography. Popular topics include: working in austerity, work-life conflict, feminising work, body shopping and outsourced labour, migrant workers, India’s new service economy, gig labour, and the death of class.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures introduce, develop and illustrate theories and empirical material relating to different geographies of work, employment, and labour.

Seminars provide an opportunity for more interactive student-led discussion around key authors and seminal texts, alongside integrated analysis and presentation of relevant empirical case study material.

Specialist films and associated seminars provide illustrations of case studies on new worlds of work, postcolonial working lives, and alternative work futures.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Exams

Other Assessment

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The unseen exam will test students understanding of the basic concepts outlined in the module, and abilities to engage with the relevant academic literature. The 2000 word essay tests students' ability to explore subjects in depth, demanding critical reading and writing skills and an ability to gather and synthesise material and to formulate a rigorous argument.

Reading Lists

• GEO3146's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• GEO3146's Timetable