CLaSP invites you for a discussion on the book Fields of Glass: Labour Regimes, Techno-Science and Biopolitics in Agrifood Value Chains

Author Adrian Smith (University of Sussex) will be in conversation with Don Mitchell (Uppsala University).

Fields of Glass examines the relationships between technology and labour regimes in agrifood value chains. It seeks to formulate new perspectives that bridge the hitherto distinct worlds of value chain research, agrarian political economy, labour regime theory, and agrarian techno-science to explain the enduring insecurity of food systems in the United Kingdom. Drawing upon both historical and contemporary research, the book explores how the precarity and exploitation of migrant labour intersects with ecology and techno-science, and the governance of innovation, in the forms of hydroponic and digital technologies, to explain the development and changing nature of work in glasshouse agrifood value chains in the UK.

Adrian Smith is Professor of Management at the University of Sussex Business School where he is also Associate Dean (Research and Innovation). His research is on labour and global production systems, and he is currently researching labour regimes and digital technologies in agri-food value chains. He is a research co-lead at the ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work, co-Editor in Chief of European Urban and Regional Studies, and was a co-founder of the Centre for Labour and Global Production, the predecessor of CLaSP, at QMUL. His most recent books are Fields of Glass: Labour Regimes, Techno-Science and Biopolitics in Agrifood Value Chains; Labour Regimes and Global Production (edited with Elena Baglioni, Liam Campling and Neil Coe); Free Trade Agreements and Global Labour Governance (with James Harrison, Liam Campling, Ben Richardson, and Mirela Barbu).

Don Mitchell is professor of human geography at Uppsala University, Sweden.  His research focuses on labor-capital struggles in the making of agribusiness (and now urban) landscapes; the politics of public space and homelessness; the spatiality of law; and spatial theories of justice.  He is currently drowning in a deep sea of documents related to the rise and fall of the United Farm Workers and the remaking of California agribusiness between 1960-2000; involved in an international network called “Keep the City Ticking” which examines the shifting labor and migration infrastructures that shape contemporary urban space; completing a book (with Johan Pries 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 growing in Sicily, across the logistical networks in Europe, to final consumption in the trendy bars and restaurants of Copenhagen.  His most recent books are Landscape, Law, and Justice – 20 Years (edited with Michael Jones, Gunhild Setten, and Amy Strecker); Mean Streets: Homelessness, Public Space, and the Limits to Capital; and Revolting New York: How 400 Years of Riot, Rebellion, Uprising and Revolution Shaped a City (edited, with the late Neil Smith).”