|
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
|
Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 27, No. 4,
395-409 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0308275X07084227
The Rise of a Global Garment Industry and the Reimagination of Worker Solidarity
Jane Collins
University of Wisconsin, Madison, jcollins{at}ssc.wisc.edu
In 1996, Bill Roseberry published an article in American Anthropologist entitled `The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of Class in the United States'. In it, he explored the connections that linked the rise of specialty coffees marketed at Zabars and Starbucks to new class configurations of consumerism in the US and to new production arrangements in the coffee-producing countries. The article seeks to apply this approach to the analysis of another commodity chain: that of apparel. It explains how recent changes in the global apparel industry are shaped by power and experienced by workers and consumers. It seeks to bridge the divide between industrialized and developing nations by showing the commonalities (as well as differences) experienced by the industry's workers in the US and abroad. And it shows how global production patterns have given rise to global resistance strategies, as workers forge bonds with social movements outside of the factory and develop transnational alliances. In the spirit of Roseberry's work, this account seeks to meld cultural analysis with political economy, and to attend to historical contingency, without losing sight of corporate and state power.
Key Words: apparel industry • commodities • community unionism • moral economy • Taylorism
References
- Appadurai, Arjun (1990) ` Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy ', Theory, Culture & Society 7: 295—310 .[CrossRef]
- Braverman, Harry (1974) Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press .
- Bronfenbrenner, Kate (2000) Uneasy Terrain: The Impact of Capital Mobility on Workers, Wages and Union Organizing. Report submitted to the US Trade Deficit Review Commission , 6 September.
- Burawoy, Michael (1985) The Politics of Production. London: Verso .
- Collins, Jane L. (2003) Threads: Gender, Labor and Power in the Global Apparel Industry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press .
- Cowie, Jefferson (1999) Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy-year Quest for Cheap Labor. New York: New Press .
- Friedman, Thomas L. (2001) ` Protesting for Whom? ', New York Times 24 April: A19 .
- Greider, William (1997) One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism. New York: Simon and Schuster .
- Harvey, David (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell .
- Hayden, Tom and Charles Kernaghan (2002) ` Pennies an Hour, and No Way Up ', New York Times 7 July: A27 .
- International Labor Organization (2000) Labour Practices in the Footwear, Leather, Textile and Clothing Industries. Report for discussion at the Tripartite Meeting on Labour Practices in the Footwear, Leather, Textile and Clothing Industries. Geneva , 16—20 October.
- Kristof, Nicholas D. and Sheryl WuDinn (2000) ` Two Cheers for Sweatshops ', New York Times Magazine 24 September: 6—7 .
- Lipietz, Alain (1987) Mirages and Miracles. New York: Verso .
- Louie, Miriam Ching Yoon (2001) Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on the Global Factory. Boston, MA: South End Press .
- Marcus, George (1995) ` Ethnography In/Of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-sited Ethnography ', Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 95—117 .[CrossRef][ISI]
- Mendez, Jennifer Bickham (2002) `Creating Alternatives from a Gender Perspective: Transnational Organizing for Maquila Workers' Rights in Central America', pp. 121—40 in Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai (eds) Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. New York: Routledge .
- Mendez, Jennifer Bickham (2005) From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras: Gender, Labor and Globalization in Nicaragua. Durham, NC: Duke University Press .
- Mintz, Sidney (1985) Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Viking .
- Moody, Kim (1997) Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy. New York: Verso .
- Peña, Devon (1997) The Terror of the Machine: Technology, Work, Gender and Ecology on the US—Mexico Border. Austin: Center for Mexican-American Studies Books.
- Piore, Michael J. and Charles F. Sabel (1984) The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity. New York: Basic Books .
- Polanyi, Karl (1944) The Great Transformation. New York: Rinehart .
- Roseberry, William (1996) ` The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of Class in the United States ', American Anthropologist 98(4): 762—75 .[CrossRef][ISI]
- Scott, Allen J. (1988) Metropolis: From the Division of Labor to Urban Form. Berkeley: University of California Press .
- Taylor, Frederick Winslow (1997) The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Dover Press . (First published 1911.)
- Zeitlin, Jonathan and Peter Totterdill (1989) `Markets, Technology and Local Intervention: The Case of Clothing', pp. 155—90 in Paul Hirst and Jonathan Zeitlin (eds) Reversing Industrial Decline? Industrial Structure and Policy in Britain and Her Competitors. New York: St Martin's Press .
 CiteULike  Connotea  Del.icio.us  Digg  Reddit  Technorati What's this?
|
