The Dictionary of Human Geography

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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 alsoscience/science studies). nb

Suggested reading
Knorr-Cetina (1999); Latour (1999b).

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:

Axiomaticforlabourgeographersistheclaim

that spatial factors – such as the inescapably

uneven geographical development of capital-

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 – reallymatter in the

practice of industrial relations and in the tra-

jectories of workplace politics.

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 ofscale, past and present. In respond-

ing to the challenges posed by globalneo-

liberalism, for example, trade unions are

experimenting with new ways to find lever-

age and re-scale their organizations beyond the

workplace to encompasscommunity, regional

and global dimensions (Herod, 2002; Savage

and Wills, 2004; Hale and Wills, 2005).

As it has matured, labour geography has

moved from its initial focus on trade union

organization to speak to most of the significant

debates inhuman geographyas 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 aslabour markets,

public policy in relation to employment and

the labour market, and questions of work and

identity(Castree, Coe, Ward and Samers,

2005). Contemporary research includes a

focus on the dynamics of labourmigration,

the extent to which labour is able and willing

to take its place in a multi-scalarcivil society

that includes the emergent global justice

movement, the way in whichclassand iden-

tity are changing, as well as questions of

globalizationand its implications for work,

wealth and power relations. jwi

Suggested reading

Herod (2002); Herod, Peck and Wills (2003).

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

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