GEOG175 HM - Geographies of Labor

Credit(s): 3

Instructor(s): Seitz

Description: What is work? How is work socially and spatially organized? How are these forms of spatial organization struggled over and transformed? Who performs what kind of work? Where? Why? This course introduces students to some of the leading critical approaches to the geographies of labor, including Marxist political economy and feminist, critical-race, anticolonial and queer theories. This course investigates a number of contemporary shifts in the organization of work, including the rise of neoliberalism, deindustrialization, the feminization of the paid labor force, the prevalence of precarious work, contemporary forms of labor migration, and the expansion of prison labor. Locating these shifts in the longer histories and geographies of unfree labor, students will examine some of the ways in which workers have used their labor as a departure point for collective action, including unionization, work refusals, and struggles over social reproduction.

HSA Course Area(s): American Studies; Geography; Gender Studies
HSA Writing Intensive: Yes