Documents Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 4 results

"This paper offers an informed commentary on the actual and potential impacts of the pandemic on financial markets, sector and centres, grounded in literature on financial centres, the state‐finance nexus, and trends affecting the landscape of finance since the global financial crisis. We expect a slowdown in new financial regulation, continued firm‐level consolidation, and a continued rise of business services related to finance. The application of new financial technologies is likely to accelerate, affecting retail banking in particular, but will not necessarily be led by FinTech firms. Local and regional financial centres are likely to face larger challenges than leading international centres. As the panic and partial recovery in financial markets in March and April 2020 highlighted the significance of the international monetary hierarchy, with the US$ in the lead, a radical shift of financial power to Asia seems unlikely."

"This paper has two interrelated aims. First, it attempts to sketch a preliminary map of economic winners and losers to highlight the emerging economic geographies of the coronavirus pandemic. Second, it aims to explore the links between these emerging economic geographies and the processes of ‘financialisation', drawing on the concept of ‘financial chains'. Regarding the first aim, the paper argues that the pandemic‐induced crisis will exacerbate social inequalities and deepen uneven development at multiple geographical scales. Regarding the second aim, the paper argues that the ‘financialisation' perspective in general, and the concept of ‘financial chains' in particular, provide useful insights into the crisis and its uneven effects, by shedding light on the complex web of flows of value and power relations established/emerging between the prospective winners and losers. It also highlights the prominent role of debt and debt‐based financial chains in shaping economic geographies in times of major global crisis."

"In biogeopolitics, the key state stakeholders develop and aim to accomplish their geopolitical goals by (mis)management and biopolitical governance of vulnerable population. In this article, this population refers to asylum‐related migrants who use or aim to use an asylum request as their entry mechanism to the European Union. This paper explores the emergence of biogeopolitics at the EU borderland between Turkey and Greece during the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2020. Statistics about irregular migration from Turkey to Greece, field observations in Lesvos (Greece) as well as media and social media discussions about COVID‐19 in Lesvos are analysed. In the biogeopolitics of COVID‐19, the governance and (mis)management of asylum‐related migrants include policies and practices to let these migrants to live or die, including regulating illegal border‐crossings, everyday living conditions at the reception centres, and actions regarding the pandemic. The COVID‐19 pandemic was used as an additional tool to foster biogeopolitics."

We draw on data from the Online Labour Index and interviews with freelancers in the United States securing work on online platforms, to illuminate effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic. The pandemic's global economic upheaval is shuttering shops and offices. Those able to do so are now working remotely from their homes. They join workers who have always been working remotely: freelancers who earn some or all of their income from projects secured via online labour platforms. Data allow us to sketch a first picture of how the initial months of the COVID‐19 pandemic have affected the livelihoods of online freelancers. The data shows online labour demand falling rapidly in early March 2020, but with an equally rapid recovery. We also find significant differences between countries and occupations. Data from interviews make clear jobs are increasingly scarce even as more people are creating profiles and seeking freelance work online."