The geography of work, whether at global, national, regional, or local scale, varies over time and space with the nature of the economy, the level of technology, and spatial variations in class structure. ‘To stake an agenda for “geographies of work” rather than for “labor geographies” means, in the most general sense, mounting a critique of the putative unitariness of value on three fronts: its basis—ostensibly, the production process; the homogeneity of its extraction—ostensibly, the wage/labor relation; and its frequently posited autonomy from use-values—ostensibly, because the qualities of things, including labor, are effaced when values truck as commodities or exchange-values’ (Gidwani and Chari (2004) Env. & Plan. D 22, 4). ‘We are encouraged to extend geographies of work beyond the workplace, to contest definitions of work, to repeatedly and insistently connect work to lives beyond work and to see workers as parents, partners, consumers, activists and much more besides’ (Stenning (2008) Antipode 40, 1). See James (2008) Geog. Compass 2, 1 on gendered geographies of labour, and Jennings et al. (2006) Area 38, 3 on children’s geographies of work. See Ward et al. (2007) Geoforum 38 on living and working in working-class communities; see also A. Herod (2001).