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Geographies of the labour process: automation and the spatiality of mining

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  • Bradon Ellem

Abstract

Productive ways of thinking about work have emerged from the recent engagement between scholars in employment relations and human geography without any sustained attention to the spatiality of the labour process itself. Arguing that where work literally ‘takes place’ is important, this article explores the spatial nature of the labour process through an examination of automation in one of the world’s largest transnational mining companies, Rio Tinto. To read the labour process in spatial terms, work must be understood in the context of global production networks, the peculiarities of national ‘space economies’ and arguments about the claimed ‘hyper-mobility’ of globalized capital as well as labour geography itself. In this case, automation and a reworking of the geography of the labour process in an industry often seen as constrained by physical geography have implications for assessing labour’s agency and power amid more general changes to the spatiality of work.

Suggested Citation

  • Bradon Ellem, 2016. "Geographies of the labour process: automation and the spatiality of mining," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 30(6), pages 932-948, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:30:y:2016:i:6:p:932-948
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017015604108
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andrew Jonas, 1996. "Local Labour Control Regimes: Uneven Development and the Social Regulation of Production," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 323-338.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Julia Keenan & Deanna Kemp & John Owen, 2019. "Corporate responsibility and the social risk of new mining technologies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(4), pages 752-760, July.
    3. Katie J Wells & Kafui Attoh & Declan Cullen, 2021. "“Just-in-Place†labor: Driver organizing in the Uber workplace," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(2), pages 315-331, March.
    4. Miguel Atienza & Marcelo Lufin & Moritz Breul, 2024. "(Un)linking industrial path development and development outcomes through asset mobilization: The decline of the territorial embeddedness of labor in mining regions," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2417, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised May 2024.
    5. Moore, K.R. & Moradi, S. & Doyle, K. & Sydd, O. & Amaral, V. & Bodin, J. & Brito-Parada, P.R. & Dudley, F. & Fitzpatrick, R. & Foster, P. & Goettmann, F. & Roberts, D. & Roethe, R. & Sairinen, R. & Sa, 2021. "Sustainability of switch on-switch off (SOSO) mining: Human resource development tailored to technological solutions," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    6. Krzywdzinski, Martin & Lechowski, Grzegorz & Mählmeyer, Valentina, 2019. "Lean Work and Gender Inequalities: Manufacturing Consent at a Multinational Car Plant in Provincial Russia," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10(2), pages 123-141.

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