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SUMMARY:Harvesting Urban Space: The Agribusiness Roots of Employee Misclas
 sification and Why They Matter in the Fulfillment City - Professor Don Mit
 chell (Uppsala University\, Sweden)
DTSTART:20260204T160000Z
DTEND:20260204T180000Z
UID:TALK241855@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Laszlo Cseke
DESCRIPTION:Cities are being reorganized around the promise of near-instan
 t fulfillment.  With a click\, meals\, groceries\, health-care workers\, a
 nd cleaners show up at your door within the day\, often within the hour.  
 Just as fast a car pulls up to whisk you to a date\, meeting\, or the airp
 ort.  In order for this to happen\, a highly mobile\, flexible\, just-in-t
 ime\, just-in-place workforce has to be there\, waiting.  As is well-known
 \, the platform companies that organize and deploy the gig labor that make
 s the fulfillment city tick rely on what is called “employee misclassifi
 cation\,” treating their employees by contract\, and now in some places 
 like California\, by law\, as “independent contractors” with few if an
 y of the normal labor and welfare protections offered to regular employees
 .  \n\nSuch “misclassification” is hardly new\, but instead has antece
 dents not in the city\, but in the countryside\, and\, I will argue in thi
 s talk\, for surprisingly similar reasons.  The discontinuous work that ma
 rks the urban gig economy echoes the discontinuous work that marks agricul
 tural production\, even if the time scales sometimes differ.  Focusing on 
 California\, in this talk\, I will show how the resolution of series of la
 bor struggles in the Central Coast fields in the 1980s created a legal lan
 dscape that first logistics and then gig companies had to confront and van
 quish in order to vouchsafe their “independent contractor” model of la
 bor relations.  In doing so I will offer a political-economic explanation\
 , rooted in theories of the discontinuities between labor\, production\, a
 nd circulation time\, for why “independent contractor” status seems so
  indispensable both on the farm and in the fulfillment city.\n\n---\n\nDon
  Mitchell is professor of human geography at Uppsala University\, Sweden. 
  His research focuses on labor-capital struggles in the making of agribusi
 ness (and now urban) landscapes\; the politics of public space and homeles
 sness\; the spatiality of law\; and spatial theories of justice.  He is cu
 rrently drowning in a deep sea of documents related to the rise and fall o
 f the United Farm Workers and the remaking of California agribusiness betw
 een 1960-2000\; involved in an international network called “Keep the Ci
 ty Ticking” which examines the shifting labor and migration infrastructu
 res that shape contemporary urban space\; completing a book (with Johan Pr
 ies and Erik Jönsson) on Sweden’s People’s Parks\; and just launching
  a new research project (led by Marlene Spanger at Aalborg University) on 
 labor relations along the whole “natural wine” supply chain from growi
 ng in Sicily\, across the logistical networks in Europe\, to final consump
 tion in the trendy bars and restaurants of Copenhagen.  His most recent bo
 oks are Landscape\, Law\, and Justice – 20 Years (edited with Michael Jo
 nes\, Gunhild Setten\, and Amy Strecker)\; Mean Streets: Homelessness\, Pu
 blic Space\, and the Limits to Capital\; and Revolting New York: How 400 Y
 ears of Riot\, Rebellion\, Uprising and Revolution Shaped a City (edited\,
  with the late Neil Smith).
LOCATION:Small Lecture Theatre\, Department of Geography
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