Geographies of the labour process

Automation and the Spatiality of Mining

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2374036
AutoresB Ellem (0000-0001-6394-2327, The University of Sydney, autor correspondente)
Ano2016
Volume30
Fascículo6
Páginas932-948
Data de publicação2016-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoWork Employment and Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0950-0170 • E-ISSN: 1469-8722
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0950017015604108
OpenAlexW2205758945
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas26
Referências citadas24

Productive ways of thinking about work have emerged from the recent engagement between scholars in employment relations and human geography without any sustained attention to the spatiality of the labour process itself. Arguing that where work literally 'takes place' is important, this article explores the spatial nature of the labour process through an examination of automation in one of the world's largest transnational mining companies, Rio Tinto. To read the labour process in spatial terms, work must be understood in the context of global production networks, the peculiarities of national 'space economies' and arguments about the claimed 'hyper-mobility' of globalized capital as well as labour geography itself. In this case, automation and a reworking of the geography of the labour process in an industry often seen as constrained by physical geography have implications for assessing labour's agency and power amid more general changes to the spatiality of work

Agency (philosophy · Capital (architecture · Context (archaeology · Economic geography · Economic system · Economics · Economy · Geography · Historical geography · Human geography · Process (computing · Social science · Sociology · Work (physics · Engineering · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Mining and Resource Management · Water Governance and Infrastructure