“GM Suicide”: Flexibility, Space, and the Injured Body

Deborah Leslie and David Butz

Economic Geography, 1998, vol. 74, issue 4, 360-378

Abstract: While geographers have devoted much attention to the external geographies of Japanese production models, little work has been done on the internal geographies of the production process. This paper explores the relationship between lean production, space, and the body. Following Lowe (1995), we argue that three practices code the body in late capitalism: post-Fordism and the flexible labor market, cybernetic systems and their impact on the labor process, and the discourse of neoclassical economics. Together, these practices construct a laboring body susceptible to greater risk. In particular, we illustrate how lean production and the spatial reorganization of the shopfloor are leading to greater risk of injury, especially repetitive strain injuries.

Date: 1998
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DOI: 10.1111/j.1944-8287.1998.tb00021.x

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