Geography 567:
(General title:  Geography and Industrial Development)

Labor  and  Regional  Development
(5 credits)

Professor James W. Harrington
Thursdays 3:30-6:20 p.m.
Smith Hall 405
 

In rapidly growing regions as well as economically stagnant regions, employment practices are in flux.  “Flexible” arrangements for corporate procurement and production have created subcontractor, contracted, temporary, and otherwise externalized work forces.  The operation of local labor markets is at the intersection of “globalization” and national and local laws and practices.  How can we study this intersection?  How can we understand the effects of (changing) employment practices on the availability of wage labor, reproduction of labor qualities, job search, and labor control?  The seminar will focus on subnational, regional labor practices and dynamics, making use of a variety of approaches:  economic, political-economic, institutional, and post-structural (focusing on the identities of workers).

• The class will meet for a three-hour session, once a week.
• Each participant will define a paper topic from the very beginning of the quarter, refining and researching to yield a finished term paper by the end of the quarter.