In this paper we examine a struggle waged by production line workers at a formerly state-owned factory located in Israel's northern periphery. Intially an attempt to prevent the closure of the privatized factory, it soon became an all-out struggle through which production line workers deployed their peripheral location and ethnoclass identities to make claims for and enact their citizenship (at work). Drawing on two years of ethnographic research, we argue that despite—or perhaps because of—years of persistent labor market reforms traditional industrial factories remain critical spaces for the constitution of citizenship in Israel. In contrast to the past, in which state-sponsored industrial employment created a perfect congruence between labor market participation and citizenship (‘I work therefore I am a citizen’), recent processes aimed at enhancing labor market flexibility have fundamentally altered these relations. Under constant threats of downsizing, precariatized industrial workers in privatized factories experience a restless citizenship, a ceaseless battle to secure their jobs through what might be called the work of citizenship.
Aharon-GutmanM, 2013, “Iron cage of ethnicity: Ethnic urban enclaves and the challenge of urban design”Urban Design International advance online publication, doi:10.1057/udi.2013.20
2.
AminA, 2004, “Regions unbound toward a new politics of place”Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography8633–44
3.
ArnoldD, 2013, “Social margins and precarious work in Vietnam”American Behavioral Scientist57468–487
4.
ArnoldDPicklesJ, 2011, “Global work, surplus labor, and the precarious economies of the border”Antipode431598–1624
5.
BarbaletJ M, 1988Citizenship Rights, Struggle and Class Inequality (University of Minneosta Press, Minneapolis, MN)
6.
Ben SimonD, 2002Dirty Business in the South (Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem) (in Hebrew)
7.
BrodieJ, 2002, “Citizenship and solidarity: Reflections on the Canadian way”Citizenship Studies6377–394
CaseyC, 2009, “Organizations, workers, and learning: New prospects for citizenship at work?”Citizenship Studies13171–185
10.
CastreeN, 2000, “Geographical scale and grassroots internationalism: The Liverpool dock dispute 1995–1998”Economic Geography76272–292
11.
CoatesD, 2006, “No going back to the 1970s? The case for a revival of industrial democracy”Public Policy Research13262–271
12.
CoeN M, 2013, “Geographies of production III: Making space for labor”Progress in Human Geography37271–283
13.
CoeN MJordhus-LierD C, 2011, “Constrained agency: Re-evaluating the geographies of labor”Progress in Human Geography35211–233
14.
ComaroffL J, 1987, “Of totemism and ethnicity: Consciousness, practice and the signs of inequality”Ethnos52301–323
15.
ComaroffL JComaroffJ, 2009Ethnicity Inc. (Chicago University Press, Chicago, IL)
16.
CoutuMMurrayG, 2005, “Towards citizenship at work? An introduction”Industrial Relations60617–630
17.
CrouchC, 1998, “The globalized economy: An end to the age of industrial citizenship?”, in Advanced Theory in Labor Law and Industrial Relations in Global Context (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam) pp 151–164
18.
CumbersAHelmsGSwansonK, 2010, “Class, agency and resistance in the old industrial city”Antipode4246–73
DurandJ P, 2007The Invisible Chain: Constraints and Opportunities in the New World of Employment (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hants)
21.
EfratE, 1987Development Towns in Israel: Past or Present? (Ahiasaf, Tel Aviv) (in Hebrew)
22.
Esping-AndersenG, 1990The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Polity Press, Cambridge)
23.
FudgeJ, 2005, “After industrial citizenship: Market citizenship or citizenship at work?”Industrial Relations60631–656
24.
FudgeJVoksoL F, 2001, “Gender, segmentation and the standard employment relations in Canadian labor law and policy”Economic and Industrial Democracy22271–310
25.
GolanA, 2009, “The hidden details behind the deterioration of Peri Ha'Galil”Ha'aretz 13 March (in Hebrew)
26.
GoldringLLandoltP, 2011, “Caught in the work-citizenship matrix: The lasting effects of precarious legal status on work for Toronto immigrants”Globalizations8325–341
27.
GordonJLenhardtR A, 2007, “Rethinking work and citizenship”UCLA Law Review551161–1238
28.
GradusY, 1983, “The role of politics in regional inequality: The case of Israel”Annals of the Association of American Geography73388–403
29.
GradusYRazinEKrakoverS, 1993The Industrial Geography of Israel (Routledge, London)
30.
GreenbergI, 2005, “The expansionist economy of the workers' economy: 1948–1988”, in Society and Economy in Israel: Historical and Contemporary Outlooks Eds BareliAGutveinDFrilingT, (Ben Gurion University Press, Sede Boker) pp 327–363 (in Hebrew)
31.
GreenbergI, 2009, “Pinhas Sapir and the industrialization of development towns”, in Development Towns Eds TzameretZHalamishAMeir-GlitzenshteinE, (Yad Ben Zvi Press, Jerusalem) pp 135–150 (in Hebrew)
HassonY, 2006Three Decades of Privatization (Adva Center, Tel Aviv) (in Hebrew)
34.
HathawayD A, 2010Can Workers have a Voice? The Politics of Deindustrialization in Pittsburgh (Penn State Press, University Park, PA)
35.
HerodA, 2001, “Labor internationalism and the contradictions of globalization: Or, why the local is sometimes still important in a global economy”Antipode33407–426
36.
IsinE F, 2008, “Theorizing acts of citizenship”, in Acts of Citizenship Eds IsinE FNielsenG M, (Zed Books, London) pp 15–43
37.
IsinE FNielsenG, 2008Acts of Citizenship (Zed Books, London)
38.
JonasA E, 1995, “Labor and community in the deindustrialization of urban America”Journal of Urban Affairs17183–199
39.
KatzC, 2004Growing Up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children's Everyday Lives (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)
40.
LeeC K, 2007Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
41.
LeeC KKofmanY, 2012, “The politics of precarity: Views beyond the United States”Work and Occupations39388–408
42.
LierD C, 2007, “Places of work, scales of organising: A review of labour geography”Geography Compass1814–833
43.
MarshallT H, 1950Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays (University of Cambridge Press, Cambridge)
44.
MontgomeryD, 1993Citizen Worker: The Experience of Workers in the United States with Democracy and the Free Market during the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
45.
Parliamentary Committee of Economics, 2012Proceedings of the Parliamentary Committee on Economics Protocol 763, 27 February (Knesset Publications, Jerusalem)
46.
PeckJ, 1996Work-place: The Social Regulation of Labor Markets (Guilford Press, New York)
47.
PicardA, 2009, “‘Who are the settlers’: Populating development towns”, in Development Towns Eds TzameretZHalamishAMeir-GlitzenshteinE, (Yad Ben Zvi Press, Jerusalem) pp 195–216 (in Hebrew)
48.
RazinE, 1986, “Closure of factories in development towns”Studies in the Geography of the Land of Israel12167–184 (in Hebrew)
49.
RazinESchwartzD, 1992, “Evaluating industrial dispersion policy in Israel under varying conditions”Israeli Quarterly of Economics34236–276 (in Hebrew)
50.
RootA, 2007Market Citizenship: Experiments in Democracy and Globalization (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA)
51.
SalzingerL, (Ed.), 2003Genders in Production: Making Workers in Mexico's Global Factories (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
52.
SchwartzD, 1989, “Effective incentive: The law for the encouragement of capital investments”Israeli Quarterly of Economics12412–21 (in Hebrew)
53.
ScottA J, 1988New Industrial Spaces: Flexible Production Organization and Regional Development in North America and Western Europe (Pion, London)
54.
ScottJ C, 2008Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT)
55.
ShacharA S, 1971, “Evaluation of national urbanization policy”Journal of the American Institute of Planners37362–372
56.
ShafirGPeledY, 2002Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
57.
StandingG, 2009Work after Globalization: Building Occupational Citizenship (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, Glos)
58.
StandingG, 2011The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (Bloomsbury Academic, New York)
59.
StasiliusD KBakanA K, 2005Negotiating Citizenship: Migrant Women in Canada and the Global System (University of Toronto Press, Toronto)
60.
SwirskiS, 2005The Price of Occupation (Adva Center Mapa Publishers, Tel Aviv) (in Hebrew)
61.
TjandraningsihI, 2013, “State-sponsored precarious work in Indonesia”American Behavioral Scientist57403–419
62.
TonkinL, 2000, “Women of steel: Constructing and contesting new gendered geographies of work in the Australian steel industry”Antipode32115–134
63.
TzfadiaEYacobiH, 2011Rethinking Israeli Space (Taylor and Francis, London)
64.
ValentineG, 2010, “Prejudice: Rethinking geographies of oppression”Social and Cultural Geography11519–537
65.
VoskoL F, (Ed.), 2006Precarious Employment: Understanding Labour Market Insecurity in Canada (McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal and Kingston, ON)
66.
VoskoL F, 2010Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship, and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment (Oxford University Press, Oxford)
67.
WhitehouseGZeitlinD, 1999, “‘Family-friendly’ policies: Distribution and implementation in Australian workplaces”The Economic and Labor Relations Review10221–239
68.
YiftachelO, 2000, “Social control, urban planning, and ethno-class relations: Mizrahi Jews in Israel's ‘Development Towns’”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research24418–438
69.
YiftachelO, 2006Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA)
