*Sorry for cross-posting*
Working in the city, organising in the city: Graduate research on the urban
politics of labour and community
SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS
At the Annual Meeting of the Assocition of American Geographers
San Francisco, April 17-21st 2007
Organisers:
Vinny Pattison, University of Manchester
David Chr. Lier, University of Manchester
Please visit: http://www.wun.ac.uk/rcc/pdfs/Work_Org_City.pdf
Urban restructuring processes across the world, and their impacts on
welfare, working conditions and service provision, are subject to intense
political contestation. As cities are increasingly identified by the role
they play in stimulating economic growth, the metropolitan scale is at the
same time becoming a central arena where struggles around production and
reproduction are played out. Increasingly customised and unequal urban
spaces confronts citizens with a reality of stark inequalities. The
informalisation, flexibilisation and ‘casualisation’ of work and employment
conditions has severe and uneven impacts upon different workers and social
groups. The restructuring and regulation of the neoliberal city encompasses
a complex set of mechanisms and actors. Community organisations, trade
unions, urban social movements often engage with, shape and/or resist
changes in the social and political infrastructure, but require considerable
legal, political and cultural resources to be able to exert leverage in
these processes. Trade unions and other interests groups are also encouraged
to reassess their traditional mobilising strategies in favour of new
political approaches.
This session seeks to capture new postgraduate research on work, and the
politics of work, in the neoliberal city. As the frequent use of the term
‘neoliberalisation’ in geographical research suggests, processes of urban
restructuring across the globe often share some important commonalities.
Hence, case studies and experiences from both the global South and North are
encouraged. Papers within this session can explore any one (or more) of the
following issues:
- the changing nature of private sector work and employment
- the challenges posed to public sector workers and citizens by the
introduction of New Public Management principles in the public sector
- the ways in which workers and community members organise in political
campaigns and alliances to defend their livelihoods and working conditions
- the role of trade unions in urban political campaigns
- social movement tactics as a strategy to engage with economic restructuring
- the framing of urban political agendas, in particular with relation to
class and non-class identities, gender, ethnicitiy and migration
This session is sponsored by the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), and
is a part of the emerging postgraduate network Researching Contemporary
Cities (RCC). RCC was established in 2006 and organises an e-conference
series in November 2006, connecting postgraduate students from various
countries and universities in an interactive network. For more information,
please visit www.wun.ac.uk/rcc.
If you are interested in presenting at this session please send an abstract
of 250 words or less to David Christoffer Lier
([log in to unmask]) or Vinny Pattison
([log in to unmask]) no later than October 6th 2006.
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