Adam
Another attempt at sending the review of Townsend. I will
send you a separate message with a further attempt to
attach the word document but, in case that fails, enclosed
is the review in the message file
Andy
Book Review
Making a Living In Europe: human geographies of economic change
Alan R Townsend
Routledge, London, 1997, 266 pp., £45.00 hardback (ISBN 0
415 14479-5)£14.99 paperback (ISBN 0 415 14480-9)
In recent years there has been a refiguring of the economic
in economic geography (Thrift and Olds, 1996, 313), but as
Alan Townsend comments even in the 1990s some, “economic
geographers have tended to ignore the human aspects of economic
change and to explore theories only of the manufacturing sector”
(Townsend 1997, 6). His book explores ‘peoples struggle to make
a living’ in Europe today, by focusing on jobs (work for
economic relations) and the changing nature of labour markets
in a much-changing Europe. His analysis involves ‘looking’
beyond Europe, for example when examining globalization
through the strategies of European TNCs) and
flexibilisation (with comparisons with the US labour
market). In order to write such a book on Europe the author
has naturally had to make extensive use of published data,
with the attendant definitional problems, especially with
the ‘blurring’ of employment, unemployment and economic
inactivity.
The book is divided into three sections and eleven
chapters. art One explores Restructuring, flexibility and
unemployment in which the European employment ‘problem’ in
set in its global and regional context. Part Two - the
core of the book - The main sectors of change, highlights
the central issue of the replacement of industrial jobs for
men by more flexible jobs in the service sector for women.
Part Three the Consequences across the map of the European
Union examines the outcome of change in terms of the shift
of people and jobs from urban to rural areas, and the need
for stronger EU policies.
In the introductory chapter, Principal Themes, Townsend
feels that, “we need a people-based economic component of
human geography rather than ‘economic geography’” (8).
Chapter Two focuses on unemployment, “the leading problem
of the EU as a whole in the 1990s” (22). It is refreshing
to see the unwaged placed ‘centre stage’. In Chapter Three
the dynamics of prosperity in Europe are highlighted at a
number of spatial scales (regional, metropolitan).
Part Two, the core of the book, begins with a chapter
exploring factory job losses for organisations,
especially transnational corporations, with case studies.
The complexity of globalization is thus presented.
Unfortunately we have to wait until Part Three for any
discussion of the role of small manufacturing firms.
Part Two focuses on feminisation and the rise of the
service sector, in all its diversity - producer and
consumer services, including retailing, the geographies
of consumption and tourism. All of which are well articulated.
I will highlight just one chapter, Chapter Five, Flexibility
through Feminisation.
In this chapter there is an excellent exploration of gender
roles, labour markets and the household. Here we have an
integration of ‘work’ and ‘home’. Thus although the focus
of the book is very much the ‘workplace’ he does address
Peck’s (1996, 34) comment that, “it is necessary to look
over the factory gates, to consider the social production
and reproduction of workforces and the values that unite
and divide them”. He thus explores the home as a site of
work, discussing the tasks of social reproduction, the
commodification of some of these tasks, homeworking and
teleworking (107-9). I personally would have liked to have
seen part of this discussion on the implications of the
intertwining of home and work in decisions relating to
access to the labour market for men and women presented in
Chapter One, and then he would have really stretched the
definition of ‘work’ right at the outset of the book.
In Part Three the consequences of counterurbanisation are
explored (Chapter Ten Geographical Trends - Towards Rural
Areas). The changes highlighted earlier on in the book are
drawn together. The changing face of rural areas is
described, with brief mention to agricultural changes, the
growth of small firms, and the complex reasons that lie
behind decisions relating to rural in-migration in Europe
today (Dahms 1998; MacFarlane 1998). The final chapter is
a well written conclusion.
Making a Living in Europe provides a useful account of a
wide range of issues relating to the changing nature of
work for economic relations and its spatial dynamics in
Europe today. It certainly succeeds in examining the
intersections of economic geography with political, social
and cultural theory and we have a richer understanding of
the economic to capture the changing nature of work for
economic relations in Europe. The book will provide a
useful source text, and his critical analysis has been
applauded elsewhere (Gregson et al 1998, 3). Townsend
certainly succeeds in passing on his fascination in the
“living geography of work” (ibid XIII) through an
accessible text in which good use is made of case studies,
maps, diagrams and statistics. The summaries of the key
points made in each chapter will be useful to students, and
I am sure that the book will find its place on many reading
lists, if it hasn’t already.
Irene Hardill
Nottingham Trent University
References
Dahms, F. (1998) Settlement evolution in the arena society
in the urban field. Journal of Rural Studies, 14,3,299-320.
Gregson, N. Simonsen, K., and Vaiou, D. (1998) The meaning
of work: some arguments for the importance of culture
within formulations of work in Europe. Paper presented at
European Urban and Regional Studies conference, University
of Durham, September 1998.
MacFarlane, R. (1998) What - or Who - is Rural Britain?
Town and Country Planning June 184-88.
Peck J A 1996 Work Place: the social regulation of labor
markets Guilford Press: New York.
Thrift N and Olds K 1996 Refiguring the economic in
economic geography. Progress in Human Geography 20,3,
311-37.
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Andy Cumbers
Department of Geography
University of Aberdeen
Elphinstone Road
Aberdeen
AB243UF
Tel: ++44 (0)1224 272335
Fax: ++44 (0) 1224 272331
e-mail [log in to unmask]
@abdn.ac.uk
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