Working in Public Space at Night

Keywords: night, labor, public space, urban, night-time economy
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 11

Abstract

Nocturnal work is generally less attractive than work in the day – it comes with health risks due to disruptions to body clocks, possible danger of violence, and challenges in maintaining social lives with daytime workers. As such it becomes a problem of social justice when we consider who is more or less free to choose nocturnal work, rather than daytime work. Nocturnal working has only appeared briefly as a subject of geographical research, and this paper seeks to unpack one particular angle by looking at the particular challenge brought by working in public spaces at night. Drawing from several research projects over the last decade, but primarily from research in 2019 with night-time food delivery cyclists and in 2010 with night-time street cleaners, this paper looks at how nocturnal workers inhabit and manage the challenges of night-time work in public space, and some of the challenges they face from night-time working. It makes a case that to understand the challenges of nocturnal public space work is to better understand one aspect of contemporary labor precarity.