Maiken Bjerga Kiil

• Kiil, Maiken Bjerga & Jordhus-Lier, David Christoffer (2020). Internasjonale lærdommer. In Hagen, Inger Marie & Bjergene, Jon Olav (Ed.), Grønne tariffavtaler. Gyldendal Akademisk. ISSN 9788205538900. p. 90–118. Full text in Research Archive
• Zampoukos, Kristina; Knutsen, Hege Merete; Kiil, Maiken Bjerga & Olofsdotter, Gunilla (2018). Mobile with an agency: Negotiating the spatiotemporalities of the temp migrant worker. Geoforum. ISSN 0016-7185. 93, p. 40–47. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.05.003. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Several calls have been made by labour geographers in support for a more thorough investigation and theorization of labour as an active agent in the production of economic geographies. The present paper responds to this challenge by examining how Swedish agency warehouse workers and temp nurses working in Norway act and think in relation to mobility and how certain spatiotemporalities come into play in the mobility agency of individual workers. Though we are particularly concerned with the ambiguities involved in the relationship between mobility, agency and power, a second objective is to contribute to the theorization of how space and time matters to mobile workers. Drawing on data from twenty interviews with Swedish temp nurses and six focus group interviews with Swedish agency warehouse workers, and by combining several strands of literature ranging from current research on mobilities and migration to the work of classical scholars in geography and sociology, we propose that a ‘trialectics of spatiotemporalities' is part and parcel of workers' mobility agency. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the purposive agency as emphasized for instance by the notion of ‘mobility strategy' needs to be complemented by a conceptualization of agency that includes what we term (erratic) probing. We conclude that labour mobility may be strategic and a sign of power, but not always and everywhere, and not in any pure sense.

• Kiil, Maiken Bjerga & Knutsen, Hege Merete (2016). Agency by exit: Swedish nurses and the "Not below 24,000" movement. Geoforum. ISSN 0016-7185. 70, p. 105–114. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.02.012. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Hirschman’s (1970) concepts of exit, voice and loyalty can be reworked to add further nuances to the understanding of labour agency. Agency by exit is of interest in demonstrating how agency is conditioned by structures and context that constrain and enable successful action. It may start as individual acts of coping and then enable and empower more collective actions of reworking and resistance. Agency by exit thereby expands our understanding of what strategies of coping, reworking and resistance entail. We base our arguments on a case study of the “Not below 24,000” movement among nurse students and newly graduated nurses for acceptable entry wages in Sweden. The movement has succeeded in raising the entry wage for a number of newly graduated nurses by turning individual and collective agency by exit into structural power. While the movement has managed to shake power relations, it has not fully changed the rules of the game.

View all works in NVA

• Underthun, Anders; Knutsen, Hege Merete; Kiil, Maiken Bjerga & Hansen, Per Bonde (2017). Bør bemanningsbyråer forbys? [Internet]. Forskning.no. Full text in Research Archive
• Knutsen, Hege Merete & Kiil, Maiken Bjerga (2017). Mobility Power in the Labour market- guests at work: Swedish temp nurses in Norway. Full text in Research Archive
• Knutsen, Hege Merete & Kiil, Maiken Bjerga (2015). Agency by exit: Swedish nurses and the Not below 24,000 movement. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA