Papers by Emily Reid-Musson
Meteorological Applications, May 1, 2022
Marine Policy, Nov 1, 2022
Marine Policy, Aug 1, 2022
Meteorological Applications
Geoforum, Sep 1, 2014
So-called 'transient workers' from Quebec and Atlantic Canada made up a significant proportion of... more So-called 'transient workers' from Quebec and Atlantic Canada made up a significant proportion of Ontario's tobacco harvest workforce in the postwar era, though there is no existing research on this migrant population. Based on analysis of an unexamined archive, the article explores the relationship between seasonal transient workers, Ontario tobacco growers, and the federal Canadian government during the 1960s and 1970s. Migrants harnessed strategic forms of mobility or marketplace agency in precarious, unorganized and seasonal tobacco work. Further, the deepening of migrant precarity in Ontario agriculture can in part be traced back to this period of conflict between transients, tobacco growers and different levels of the Canadian government. Migrant precarity did not go uncontested among this population. Managed migration programs, still operational today, reflect the attempt to undermine migrants' informal mobility agency. Transients travelled to find tobacco jobs with few constraints or pressures other than the compulsion to gain wages, using their relative freedom of mobility strategically, especially in public spaces, to disrupt local micro-hegemonies in tobacco areas. Government programs to manage farm labour migration were unveiled during this period in part to displace transients and solve a widely reported ''transient problem'' in tobacco.
Globalizations, Feb 10, 2022
Mobilities, Oct 15, 2017
Abstract This article explores bicycling practices among migrant farmworkers in rural southwester... more Abstract This article explores bicycling practices among migrant farmworkers in rural southwestern Ontario, Canada. Migrant farmworkers are legally authorized to work in Canada for designated farm operations for up to eight months a year. Migrants lack access to cars in rural regions where motorized travel predominates. Consequently, bicycling is an essential yet inadequate and unsafe means of transportation for migrants, part of everyday geographies of what Tim Cresswell calls ‘shadow citizenship’. I use shadow citizenship to refer to the overlapping regulatory and geographical exclusions from mobility rights that create risk and stigma for migrants in Canadian communities. Migrants have become subjects of bike safety education in rural communities. I argue that bike safety regulates and orders migrants’ bicycling conduct rather than addressing the roots of unsafe bicycling conditions. Overall, the article complicates the conventional view of bicycling as a universally healthy and progressive travel mode. Racial and economic forms of exploitation as well as socio-spatial exclusions inflect actually existing bicycling geographies.
Journal of transport and health, Sep 1, 2019
Introduction: For-hire driving work, such as taxi driving, is characterized by long hours of sede... more Introduction: For-hire driving work, such as taxi driving, is characterized by long hours of sedentary behaviour, passenger assault, lack of benefits or support, and isolating working conditions that jeopardize good health. The for-hire driving industry has recently expanded to include a new group of ride-share drivers from digital platforms such as Uber and Lyft; this has substantially increased the number of people engaged in for-hire driving. However, there is very little existing research on ride-share drivers' health and safety in relation to their work, and no research on the Canadian context. Methods: This paper draws from a qualitative study consisting of in-depth interviews and focus groups with ride-share drivers and passengers, taxi drivers, taxi and ride-share managers, and other industry key informants in a large Canadian city. This paper focuses on ride-share drivers' health risks on the job. Results: This study finds that ride-share drivers face physical and mental health risks resulting from ride-sharing work that are distinct to ride-share work, as well as ones similar to taxi driving and other transportation work. We find that the nature of the work is stressful by design: rideshare drivers face regular stressors and pressures from passengers, such as to speed and drive young children without proper booster seats. They also describe weight gain and muscle pain. Conclusion: As greater numbers of passengers opt for ride-share transportation and more people take up ride-share work, understanding potential short-and long-term health implications is an important area of inquiry. Understanding the working conditions of ride-share drivers can support the development of appropriate policy and practice tools to improve ride-share drivers' health and safety.
Agriculture and Human Values, Feb 10, 2022
Environment and Planning A, Aug 2, 2020
Scholars have recently begun to account for the absence of feminist analyses in the popular and a... more Scholars have recently begun to account for the absence of feminist analyses in the popular and academic discourse surrounding 'the future of work'. In this article we offer a critical synthesis of emerging research from feminist economic geography to propose a series of questions about the future of work, conceptualized as both an object of intellectual inquiry and an emerging empirical reality. Feminist economic geography emphasizes difference, embodiment, and conceives of workplaces as dynamic, uneven, and untidy spaces, an emphasis which can help recenter discussions about the future of work on workers and their experience of work. Our discussion features a series of analytically rigorous, theoretically informed, and empirically rich conference papers, organized around three critical questions: Who are the subjects of the future of work? What counts as work? And where should we look? We highlight a broad concept of work developed through debates among feminist scholars across disciplinary fields as a key frame for understanding the global economy, including difference, social reproduction, and the spatial division of labor. Feminist economic geographers are pluralizing the subjects, forms, and geographies of work, which may help enhance our understanding of the future of work in economic geography.
Progress in Human Geography, Aug 29, 2017
This article examines rhythmanalysis within the context of Henri Lefebvre’s critique of everyday ... more This article examines rhythmanalysis within the context of Henri Lefebvre’s critique of everyday life and identifies gaps in his framework from the vantage point of intersectional feminist scholarship. Intersectional rhythmanalysis, I argue, provides a framework through which to conceptualize the braiding together of rhythms, social categories of difference, and power on non-essentialist bases. I interweave findings from doctoral research on migrant farmworker rhythms in rural southern Ontario, Canada. The article argues that rhythms help produce unequal subject positions of migrants in Canada, yet also represent lived uses of space and times which permit transgressions of racial, gender, and class boundaries.
Applied mobilities, May 4, 2021
Travel to and from work, travel as part of work, travel in search of work and livelihoods, and tr... more Travel to and from work, travel as part of work, travel in search of work and livelihoods, and travel within the fabric of social, community, and family lives – are fragile, complex and challenging (Neis et al. 2018). The notion that how and where we work aligns with how and where we live remains taken for granted by urban and social researchers. For several decades, the acceleration of inequalities associated with neoliberal deregulation and restructuring across various domains have reorganized work-home-mobility matrices. Indeed, there are unevenly distributed frictions, costs, and burdens associated with these arrangements. In some sectors, particularly feminized, immigrant, migrant, and racialized work sectors – such as care work and construction – long-distance or extended journeys or commutes and absences from home are long-standing rather than new requirements (Premji 2017). The purpose of this special issue is to explore the relationships between different patterns and experiences of “non-standard” work mobilities through the framework of rhythmanalysis. We broadly conceptualize rhythms as the “stitching” that binds together and forms the shared backbone of reproduction and production, the zone of “concrete human reality” (Sheringham 2006, 147). Rhythms have been described as an interstitial, lived aspect of social space and social time “which systems-level analyses of mobility may neglect or overlook” (Reid-Musson 2018, 883). Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis has seen extensive uptake in recent years, including by scholars of mobility (Marcu 2017; Edensor 2010 ; Cresswell 2010; King and Lulle 2015). Some of this work focuses on leisure activities, including running (Edensor, Kärrholm, and Wirdelöv 2018) and climbing (Rickly 2016). Other work is aligned more with the Marxist groundwork that underlays Lefebvre’s thinking, such as a study of rhythms of market traders (Borch, Hansen, and Lange 2015). It is in this vein that the special issue makes a contribution in its focus on work-related mobilities. Our impetus for this special issue – that rhythmanalysis could provide a theory-building opportunity that could generate applied insights in response to inequalities and work-
Relations industrielles, Apr 20, 2020
Many large cities in North America have jurisdiction over licensing rules that shape the employme... more Many large cities in North America have jurisdiction over licensing rules that shape the employment and health conditions of ride-hail and taxi drivers. Yet there is a lack of research on the role of licensing agencies relating to the occupational health and safety (OHS) of taxi drivers. Most taxi and ride-hail drivers in Canada are self-employed workers and are, by default, exempt from OHS and worker compensation laws. Additionally, municipal licensing regimes in Canada and the US have undergone various changes as a result of pressures from new platform-based ride-hail services, like Uber and Lyft.The analysis is part of a larger study on the health and safety conditions faced by ride-hail drivers. The research approach adopted a multi-level sampling and analysis strategy with the aim of connecting taxi drivers’ everyday work experiences to company and sector practices, and with various regulatory arenas, including municipal licensing, taxation and car insurance. In this paper, the analysis draws from in-depth interviews at these different levels: with taxi and ride-hail drivers, with taxi and ride-hail managers, and with key informants in government, law, insurance, tax and elsewhere.The paper identifies features and impacts of municipal deregulation in the era of on-demand taxi services, focusing on a large Canadian city in a province where municipal authorities regulate the vehicle-for-hire sector. The research identified regulatory changes that included removing centralized taxi vehicle inspections, cancelling mandatory driver training, and instigating rapid changes to competition in the taxi workforce by issuing unlimited numbers of ride-hail licenses. Our analysis indicates that regulatory changes adopted by the city administration have compounded work vulnerabilities and hazards for taxi drivers, while extending hazardous conditions to ride-hail drivers. These hazards suggest the need for interventions at a range of levels, actors and agencies, rather than solely by city licensing officials.
Platform Labour and Global Logistics
Relations industrielles, 2020
Many large cities in North America have jurisdiction over licensing rules that shape the employme... more Many large cities in North America have jurisdiction over licensing rules that shape the employment and health conditions of ride-hail and taxi drivers. Yet there is a lack of research on the role of licensing agencies relating to the occupational health and safety (OHS) of taxi drivers. Most taxi and ride-hail drivers in Canada are self-employed workers and are, by default, exempt from OHS and worker compensation laws. Additionally, municipal licensing regimes in Canada and the US have undergone various changes as a result of pressures from new platform-based ride-hail services, like Uber and Lyft. The analysis is part of a larger study on the health and safety conditions faced by ride-hail drivers. The research approach adopted a multi-level sampling and analysis strategy with the aim of connecting taxi drivers’ everyday work experiences to company and sector practices, and with various regulatory arenas, including municipal licensing, taxation and car insurance. In this paper, th...
New Technology, Work and Employment, 2020
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Papers by Emily Reid-Musson