跨国公司地方嵌入新视角:基于地方劳工市场的研究进展与理论思考

20世纪90年代以来,跨国公司地方嵌入研究相对聚焦于资本密集型或技术密集型企业,而需要大量非熟练工人的劳动密集型跨国企业并未引起足够关注,建立在产业联系、技术外溢、社会网络等核心概念基础上的跨国公司地方嵌入分析框架很显然不能很好地解释劳动密集型跨国公司地方嵌入的理论与实践问题。在劳工地理学、新经济地理学等学科背景下,基于全球生产网络、关系嵌入、空间修复等核心概念,研究分别从劳工能动性的空间尺度、跨国公司地方嵌入的劳工要素、劳工管控对跨国公司的地方嵌入、区域劳工景观的空间修复等视角出发,系统梳理相关研究进展并提出未来主要研究议题,包括如何识别劳工供需因素对跨国公司地方嵌入的影响机制,如何剖析特殊劳工管控体制下劳工空间实践与能动性的关系,如何刻画跨国公司地方嵌入对区域劳工经济地理景观的影响,如何总结跨国公司地方嵌入与区域发展的战略耦合模式等。     

Organizing European Labour: Governance, Production, Trade Unions and the Question of Scale

This paper addresses two main debates: the recent geographical literature on trade union strategy and structure, and contemporary accounts of European labour market governance. Geographers have begun to take notice of organized labour just as it has faced a series of unprecedented challenges, which are partly derived from ongoing changes in the organization of production. In interpreting these debates I focus on the process of scaling – the ways in which the politics of labour market governance are constituted in, and are at the same time constitutive of, one geographical scale or another. These issues are explored through two key recent developments: the changing status of the European Trade Union Confederation, and the creation of European Works Councils. The ETUC and EWCs are particularly significant because they pose a challenge to existing arrangements, and potentially enable a re-configuration of the relation between capital and labour at different scales. I conclude that further exploration of European labour geography could re-connect the diversity of forms of organization of production with the scope and potential of trade union strategy; and that thinking in terms of scale is useful because it highlights the significance of both political and relational issues.     

Shaping labour migration to Italy: the role of labour market institutions

This article critically examines the existing explanations for the initiation and perpetuation of labour migration to Italy between the 1970s and early 2000s and highlights the role of labour market institutions in shaping demand for migrant labour. It posits that the institutions governing the labour market in Italy have contributed to creating demand for migrant workers first by generating a significant amount of low-standard employment and second by producing massive obstacles and disincentives to the labour market participation of the domestic supply of labour.     

西方现代劳动力地理学研究进展及对中国研究的意义

劳动力地理学研究有助于理解全球化背景下劳动力作为当前国际国内经济转型和产业区位的一个重要因素及其发生作用的内在机制,对指导劳动力市场调节、促进地方劳动力市场发展具有重要意义。本文总结了国外劳动力地理学理论研究的起源,认为其理论演变经历了由新古典经济地理学区位理论,到马克思主义新经济地理理论,到近年来\"文化、制度转向\"的劳动力市场地理发展历程。介绍了近年来地方化劳动力市场地理理论和实证研究领域,及其对产业空间组织的影响等方面所取得的最新进展。在对当前的研究进行评述的基础上,指出不足和未来方向。与西方学术界相比,我国相关理论研究较为欠缺,尤其是文化、制度等因素对我国劳动力市场影响的研究有待进一步加强。     

Labour Geography of the National Question in Times of Decolonisation: Sharecropper Politics in Western Punjab,c. 1945–1953

This article examines the labour geographies of nationalism through sharecropper “articulations” of anti-colonialism. I study the Punjab Kisan (peasant) Committee at the eve and dawn of Pakistan’s independence from British colonialism. I analyse their actions and claims through newsletters, activist memoirs, and colonial reports. I situate them in relation to other social and political forces: the state, landlords, and Muslim nationalists. Whereas labour geography has often ignored nationalism, I outline an approach for the sub-field to address this gap. First, subaltern nationalisms re-articulate labour, land, gender, and religion in place-specific ways. Second, exclusionary and liberatory nationalisms are variegated responses to the dynamics of being integrated to an imperialist world-economy. This study found these multi-religious peasant committees articulated sovereignty over labour, land, and social reproduction with the national question. Further, this article contributes to the subaltern and labour historiography of Pakistan.     

Reconceptualising local labour markets in the context of cross-border and transnational labour flows: The Irish example

The increased prevalence of border-crossing labour of various types makes an uneasy juxtaposition of the ‘local’ and the ‘transnational’ or the ‘global’ and raises two classes of questions. These concern, firstly, the definition of the local in local labour markets and, secondly, the role of state borders in regulating and shaping flows of border-crossing workers. The paper begins to explore these issues. It questions the conceptualisation and definition of local labour markets and outlines a case for transnational labour and state borders to be included in their theorisation. Following this, drawing on studies of recruitment and interviews with labour market actors on both sides of the Irish border it discusses how state borders impact on different types of labour in different circumstances and outlines the paradoxical and sometimes contradictory nature of state borders in labour regulation and employers' strategies. It concludes by arguing that state borders might be moved from the edge of local labour market studies to a place much nearer their centre.     

Russia's penal peripheries: space, place and penalty in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia

Russia has a distinctive 'geography of punishment' that is the product of the use of the peripheries as a place of exile and incarceration. Framing the analysis in a discussion of recent penal theory, including in the works of Michel Foucault, the author traces the formation of Russia's penal peripheries up to the present day and uses the example of the north of Perm' oblast to analyse the process involved in forging a 'penal region'.     

The development of geographical differences in education levels within the Swedish tourism industry

ABSTRACT

The nexus of workforce and destination development is a largely uncharted area within tourism research. The local human capital has above all been in focus when underlining tourism's potential to create employment even for the inexperienced and less educated. However, a discordant strand of theory holds the low levels of qualified knowledge within the industry responsible for absent destination development in areas struggling to develop competitive advantages. Additionally, the in-migration of a skilled workforce may be hampered by a lack of amenities attracting permanent residents. In order to explore whether the tourism sector is characterized by a less educated share of the workforce, a study was performed using micro-level data on the full working population of Sweden during the years 2000–2010. The workforce in tourism was compared to the total and two other low-skill sectors, and the results show that the educational aspects within tourism are more related to geography than economic sectors. Contrary to general presumptions, the workforce within the tourism sector has a higher level of formal education than the other selected sectors in regions with generally low educational levels. The implication is thus that strategies aimed at creating employment for the least educated in rural areas need to be reconsidered, and not unconditionally target the tourism sector. Above all, tourism development needs to be based on assessments of local preconditions rather than a generalized image.