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| PROGRESS IN THE STUDY OF MODERN LABOUR GEOGRAPHY IN WESTERN COUNTRIES AND THE SIGNIFICANCE FOR CHINA |
| JIN Li-xia1,2, LI Xun1 |
1. School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China;
2. Guangzhou Institute of Geography, Guangzhou 510070, China |
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Abstract The study of labour geography may help to understand that labour acts as an important factor of the current economic restructuring and industrial location at the international and domestic level, and the internal mechanism of its function in Globalization. It can guide the labour market regulation, and promote local labour market development. This paper summarizes the theory origin of the western labour geography, such as the studies of labor issues of ancient commercial geography, classical economics and Marxist theory. With the concept of "the production of space", the development history of theory research of labour geography are as follows:Firstly, the location theory of new classical economic geography regards labour as one of the major factors of production, in which labour's role as the main participants in social activities has been ignored, and the space has been theorized as a kind of "containers"of social life; Secondly, new Marxism economic geography theory assumes spatial turn and agency transformation, in which "space" is introduced as a production factor, and labour has been considered as an object to be controlled and exploited. Until "geography of Labour" turns to "Labour geography", labour was not regarded as an active geographical subject and key factor in the modern industrial location; Thirdly, the research on "culture and system turn" in labour market geography in recent years has no longer focused on the role of labour in the industry (re-) location. Compared with the studies of western academia, this paper finally points out that the related theory research in China is insufficient and lags behind, especially during the new period of China's labour market transition.
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Received: 12 January 2012
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2013, Vol. 28 
