ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a means of understanding the medium and the method of economic and social restructuring from a geographic perspective. It outlines the framework of analysis and discusses some of the causes of the current round of geographical and economic restructuring. The chapter addresses a specifically materialist view of restructuring drawing on current literature and observations of empirical trends. It focuses on what happens to labour in a restructuring event. The restructuring which takes place in the economic arena has direct repercussions in the workforce and on the social relations which exist among workers in the workplace and in the community. The choice of restructuring strategies in the developing countries depends on the particular nature of the labour market. The concept of the 'global factory' means that we must organize our framework of analysis to include both the moves of first world firms to the third world to engage cheaper labour.
