The multiple geographies of constrained labour agency

Abstract

This article critically evaluates the burgeoning work on labour agency in human geography over the past decade. We review efforts to distinguish varied forms of labour agency and locate them in different social contexts. In so doing, we identify certain disjunctures in the cross-case conceptualisation of labour agency and propose a morphogenetic approach to structure-agency dynamics in the world of work. In turn, we then address the lack of explicit reflection on the geographies inherent to labour agency. Four temporal moments are highlighted as central to the spatialities of worker actions, as well as to their structural constraints and outcomes.