Risky subjects: changing geographies of employment in the automobile industry

This paper examines employment in the Canadian automobile industry in terms of Beck's (1992) Risk Society. We demonstrate that risk transcends terms o f employment, to encompass injury, lay-off and displacement. Work becomes i ncreasingly risky with the blurring of employment relations within and amon g three geographic scales: the globe, the locale and the plant. We argue fo r an embodied account of the experience of risk which emphasizes the inscri ption of different temporal and spatial configurations of work on the body.