The Dictionary of Human Geography (109 page)

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Authors: Michael Watts

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kibbutz
A collective Zionist village. Over 250 rural kibbutz settlements (?kibbutzim? in the plural) have been established in Israel/ Palestine since 1909. Kibbutz communities combine two ideals sociaLism and Zionism. Until the 1970s, kibbutzim were considered the torch bearers of the Zionist project by embodying its main goals: colonizing, (NEW PARAGRAPH) Judaizing and farming the contested frontiers, leading the Israeli army, and symbolizing the new national culture. The ?kibbutznik? became an icon of Zionist identity the ?new Jew? a strong, independent, settler sol dier. However, with the gradual decline of hegemony held by Israel?s Ashkenazi (Western) Jews and Labor Movement, the special status of the kibbutzim has eroded. Today, most kib butzim have become urbanizing villages, and have shed many of their socialist features. oy (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Gavron (2000); Rosner (2000). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
knowledge economy
An economic regime in which knowledge intensive manufacturing and service activities become dominant, and in which the skill and expertise of workers and the innovation that this facilitates lie at the heart of the success of firms, regions and national economies. The idea of a knowledge economy derives from Drucker?s (1969) account of the role of the ?knowledge worker? in manufacturing industries, and it has been developed through knowledge based views of the firm and arguments about the centrality of knowledge to the competitiveness of national economies. The concept of a post industriaL society based on advanced, knowledge rich services was also instrumental in attracting the attention of academics and policy makers. (NEW PARAGRAPH) From a policy perspective, the idea of the knowledge economy has been used to fore ground discussions, in the Anglo American world in particular, about the need to invest in skills development and training for workers, and to promote the shift towards advanced knowledge intensive industries (OECD, 2000). These debates have often been tied to discus sions of national competitiveness (Dunning, 2000), which tacitly assume a spatial division of Labour in which the economies of Western Europe, North America and South East Asia act as ?leaders? in the knowledge economy, whilst less developed nations will fulfil less knowledge intensive roles, particularly in manufacturing assembly processes. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Academic debates have addressed three main issues. First, Gregersen and Johnson note that ?all economies are knowledge based. Even so called primitive economies depend on complicated knowledge structures? (1997, p. 481). Consequently, discussion has recognized degrees of knowledge intensity. Second, the regionaL geography of the knowledge economy has been foregrounded in analyses of cLusters, Learning regions, industriaL districts and innovative milieux. But Martin and Sunley (2003) remain uncon vinced that the region is the appropriate scale of analysis, while others position regions within global networks of knowledge that include both the embodied movement of personnel and the virtual circulation of knowledge through global telecommunication systems (Amin and Cohendet, 2004). Third, considerable attention has been paid to the discursive effect of the concept itself (see dis course). Thrift (1997b) posits the contem porary emergence of a ?soft capitaLism?, whose ideologies and practices powerfully shape the ways in which policy makers use ideas of competitiveness and innovation asso ciated with the knowledge economy. Thus Larner (2007) shows how the New Zealand government developed policies based on the logics of the knowledge economy to harness the expertise of expatriates and emigrants in (NEW PARAGRAPH) extensive regime (NEW PARAGRAPH) intensive regime (NEW PARAGRAPH) regimes of accumulation (NEW PARAGRAPH) development of capitalist labour process (NEW PARAGRAPH) manufacture (NEW PARAGRAPH) extraction of absolute surplus value - growth of industrial working class (NEW PARAGRAPH) machlnofacture (NEW PARAGRAPH) growth of relative surplus value - increasing automation and labour intensity - spread of wage-labour norm (NEW PARAGRAPH) ç fordism (NEW PARAGRAPH) Intensive division of labour through flow-line assembly and 'scientific management? - spread of mass consumption norm (NEW PARAGRAPH) - flexible accumulation î- (NEW PARAGRAPH) new international division of labour; separation of finance from industry; deconcentration of capital - emergence of more flexible strategies of investment and production> (NEW PARAGRAPH) > (NEW PARAGRAPH) > (NEW PARAGRAPH) internationalization of money-capital (NEW PARAGRAPH) internationalization of finance capital (NEW PARAGRAPH) expansion of capital circulation (NEW PARAGRAPH) metamorphoses of business cycles (NEW PARAGRAPH) Industrial (NEW PARAGRAPH) over-accumulatlon (NEW PARAGRAPH) regular industrial cycle of expansion, destruction and replacement of fixed capital - speculative investment manias and financial crashes (NEW PARAGRAPH) Internationalization of commodity-capital (NEW PARAGRAPH) ? financial ? (NEW PARAGRAPH) over-accumulation (NEW PARAGRAPH) protracted industrial shallow industrial (NEW PARAGRAPH) crises, relatively growth cycles, (NEW PARAGRAPH) autonomous financial inflationary pressures (NEW PARAGRAPH) fluctuations (NEW PARAGRAPH) internationalization of productive-capital (NEW PARAGRAPH) permanent ? inflation (NEW PARAGRAPH) KondratiefF waves A schematic representation of the major features associated with long-wave economic cycles (Knox and Agnew, 1989: adapted from Marshall, 1987)rder to improve competitiveness. Peck (NEW PARAGRAPH) sounds a cautionary note, however, noting that discourses surrounding the know ledge economy and a supposed ?creative cLass? have led to the prioritization of the needs of workers with certain skill sets and the marginalization of nominally ?non cre ative?, ?non innovative? workers in non know ledge intensive occupations (from cleaners to caterers to public transport operators), with out which the knowledge economy cannot op erate. jf (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Dunning (2000); Gregerson and Johnson (1997). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
Kondratieff waves
Cycles in economic activity in the world economy, with a wave length of40 60 years. Shorter oscillations may be superimposed over these long waves, but Kondratieff waves imply fundamental qualitative transformations through alternat ing sequences of growth and stagnation rather than mere quantitative fluctuations in economic activity (see figure on page 401). Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratieff (1892 1938) claimed to have identified long waves in the 1920s, and since then there has been con siderable interest in and controversy over the connections between them and the dynamics of uneven deveLopment under capitaLism. Mandel (1980) argues that there is a systemic relationship between long waves and capitalist restructuring, for example, while Maddison (NEW PARAGRAPH) accepts the existence of major phases of capitalist growth but insists that these have been the result of ?specific disturbances of an ad hoc character?. Scholars who accept a systemic relationship typically fasten on technological change: technical innovations often cluster during recessions, when they open the door to revived profits and to wider transformations in the Labour process, re gimes of accumulation and the like. On this basis, Kondratieff waves have been asso ciated with technological revolutions (cf. indus triaL revoLution) and sectoral growth for example: (NEW PARAGRAPH) steam power and machinofacture in the textile industries; (NEW PARAGRAPH) the spread of railways and the growth of the iron and steel industries; (NEW PARAGRAPH) electricity, petroleum and the chemical and automobile industries; (NEW PARAGRAPH) electronics, synthetics and petrochem icals; and (NEW PARAGRAPH) information technology, telecommunica tions and biotechnology. (NEW PARAGRAPH) This is only an example; several different schemes have been proposed. Technical in novations are not only distinguished by peri odicity, however, but also have distinctive geographies: spatial loci of experimentation and innovation, and networks of diffusion. The complex of changes represented by these cycles and phases thus has a profound impact on and is also deeply affected by geographies of production and reproduction (see, e.g., Marshall, 1987; Hall and Preston, 1988; Dicken, 2007). Some scholars have also pro posed a close association between Kondratieff waves and the global geography of war (see, e.g., Goldstein, 1988; Devezas, 2006). el (NEW PARAGRAPH)
laboratory
A laboratory is a site of experi mentation. Not simply a physical space where a certain sort of scientific research takes place, the full significance of laboratories can only be appreciated if they are understood as a very particular achievement. A historically specific configuration of people, practices, machines and measurements, the laboratory is organized as an arena in which purified of the contin gencies of the field the truth of the matter phenomena under investigation will supposedly reveal itself. As the privileged generator of the particular form of knowledge that is the scientific fact, laboratories are thus a source of great authority and potentially power, particularly if a network allowing the extension of its results elsewhere can be built and main tained (see also sciencE/science studies). nb (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Knorr Cetina (1999); Latour (1999b). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
labour geography
Straddling economic, political, social and cultural concerns, labour geography is now an established part of the geographical discipline. In its earliest mani festations, the sub field was driven by an effort to highlight the agency of labour in making the landscape, most particularly through collect ive trade union organization. Rather than see ing labour as simply a factor in production, or even as an agent of a socialist dawn, labour geographers sought to document the ways in which workers? organizations developed as part of the lived experience of pLace. As such, trade union organization is understood as being co constituted with place. As Herod, Peck and Wills (2003, p. 176) explain in a recent overview of the field and its relationship to industrial relations: (NEW PARAGRAPH) Axiomatic for labour geographers is the claim that spatial factors such as the inescapably uneven geographical development ofcapital ist economies, the geographical scale and scope of legislation, the role of distinctive regional ?cultures? of industrial relations practices, the structure and dynamics of local labour markets, the spatial hierarchies of trade union organisation, the locally dif ferentiated processes of social reproduction, gender and race relations, the shifting land scape of political activism and labour organ isational capacities really matter in the practice of industrial relations and in the tra jectories of workplace politics. (NEW PARAGRAPH) Hence, labour geographers argue that we can not understand matters of work, managerial cultures, trade union organization, local polit ics or culture without attention to geography. Moreover, recent work in this field has high lighted the extent to which trade unionism itself has its own geography: the organizational structures and strategies deployed reflect the politics of scale, past and present. In respond ing to the challenges posed by global neo liBeralism, for example, trade unions are experimenting with new ways to find lever age and re scale their organizations beyond the workplace to encompass community, regional and global dimensions (Herod, 2002; Savage and Wills, 2004; Hale and Wills, 2005). (NEW PARAGRAPH) As it has matured, labour geography has moved from its initial focus on trade union organization to speak to most of the significant debates in human geography as a whole. What started as a polemical effort to put labour on the map of the discipline has be come part of the mainstream. Labour geog raphy continues to evolve, now encompassing research into matters such as laBour markets, public policy in relation to employment and the labour market, and questions of work and identity (Castree, Coe, Ward and Samers, (NEW PARAGRAPH) . Contemporary research includes a focus on the dynamics of labour migration, the extent to which labour is able and willing to take its place in a multi scalar civiL society that includes the emergent global justice movement, the way in which cLass and iden tity are changing, as well as questions of gloBalization and its implications for work, wealth and power relations. jwi (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) Herod (2002); Herod, Peck and Wills (2003). (NEW PARAGRAPH)
labour market
The geographical arena in which labour power is bought and sold where those looking for work (workers) and those looking for workers (employers) find (NEW PARAGRAPH) each other. As such, labour markets are neces sarily geographical (Martin, 2000b). These labour markets are often very local, including places such as the street corner where day labourers stand hoping for work or the town in which the local newspaper publishes adverts looking for staff. However, under conditions of neo liberal gLobaLization these transactions are being spatially stretched to incorporate migrants who might cross continents looking for work. Thus, the labour markets in some global cities such as London are places where native born Londoners are competing for jobs at both the ?top? and ?bottom? ends of the occupational hierarchy with workers from the rest of the world. Indeed, there is now a large literature exploring the complex labour markets of such cities and regions (May, Wills, Datta, Evans and Herbert, 2007). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Geographical understandings of the labour market were traditionally focused on mapping the geographical area from which workers travelled to work. As such, large urban connurbations often attracted workers from relatively far away, using the commuter trans portation networks on which all cities depend. However, this approach to mapping the labour market tells us nothing about the power rela tions or the role of geography in the operation of labour markets. Labour power is a unique form of commodity and in order to buy la bour power, employers have to deal with the people who embody that power (Peck, 1996). As such, the labour market depends upon employers managing their workers through the labour process in order to realize the commodity labour power that they buy. People come to work with their own perso nalities, expectations of work and political traditions, and the potential conflict between employers and workers is the root of trade union organization (see Labour geography). (NEW PARAGRAPH) Such social relations also reflect the place in which the labour market is grounded. Unequal opportunities to develop skills and different life experiences afford people varying potential to ?sell themselves? in the market for jobs; skills reflect previous opportunities for education, work and training, and the history of employment, in any location. As is well documented, workers in rustbeLt regions that long depended on male manual work struggle to find work in the new service econ omy (see services). The changing nature of the economy demands new kinds of workers, with different physical and mental qualities (McDowell, 2003). There is often a spatial mismatch between the needs of employers and the needs of those looking for work, and workers find themselves being de skilled or having to re train in order to secure employ ment. As such, the labour market has a direct relationship to and impact upon the configur ation of gender, ethnic and class relations in and across space. Processes of direct and in direct discrimination in labour demand fur ther accentuate these structural divisions in labour supply. Employers view potential work ers through their own characterization of the ?good worker? and employees find themselves in segregated workplaces and jobs as a result. Jobs are gendered and women are still largely concentrated in part time, lower status and lower paid work (McDowell, 2001). Jobs are similarly racialized and socially con structed as being better suited to men and/or women from particular ethnic groups. Thus, while many minority ethnic women are nurses in the UK, they face direct and indirect discrimination in securing employment in managerial grades. (NEW PARAGRAPH) In recent years, governments have turned their attention to the labour market in order to reduce welfare receipt and ?make work pay?. In what has been called workfare, governments in many post industrial economies have re duced welfare payments and/or developed ac tive labour market strategies that demand evidence of job search and training on the part of the unemployed. These policies have been developed without regard to the geog raphy of labour demand or the cost of going to work. Governments have altered the supply of labour without concern for the quality of the jobs to be filled. As such, and despite national level variations in legal minimum wages and statutory employment rights, there have been concerted efforts directed at labour market flexibility. A number of scholars have argued that these strategies are ideologically driven, seeking to create new sources of very cheap labour. As Peck puts it: (NEW PARAGRAPH) Stripped down to its labor regulatory essence, workfare is not about creating jobs for people that don?t have them; it is about creating workers for jobs nobody wants. In a Foucauldian sense, it is seeking to make ?do cile bodies? for the new economy: flexible, self reliant and self disciplining (2001, p. 6). (NEW PARAGRAPH) In countries such as the UK and the USA, these labour market policies are being aug mented by efforts at managed migration, whereby workers are recruited to fill specific gaps in the labour market, often doing jobs that native workers are unwilling to do. This (NEW PARAGRAPH) drive for labour market flexibility has fuelled the growth of the working poor in many loca tions, and new forms of political resistance, such as living wage campaigns, are growing as a result. jwi (NEW PARAGRAPH) Suggested reading (NEW PARAGRAPH) McDowell (2003); Peck (1996). (NEW PARAGRAPH)

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