Global value chains and human development: a class-relational framework

Global Value Chain proponents argue that regional and human development can be achieved through ‘strategic coupling’ with transnational corporations. This argument is misleading for two reasons. First, GVC abstracts firm-firm and firm-state relations from their class-relational basis, obscuring fundamental developmental processes. Second, much GVC analysis promotes linear conceptions of development. This article provides a class-relational framework for GVC analysis. The formation and functioning of GVCs and the developmental effects associated with them are products of histories of evolving and often conflictive, class relations. A study of export horticulture in North East Brazil provides empirical support for these arguments

Gender wage work and development in north east Brazil

The last three decades have witnessed a major expansion of export agriculture in Latin America and the emergence of largely feminised labour forces. Research has illustrated how farms purposefully construct gendered divisions of labour and how women often experience worse pay and conditions than men. However, it is also important to consider how and why gender divisions of labour change. This article does so by examining export grape production in North East Brazil. It locates farms' practices of gendering work within a three-pronged context of rising buyer requirements, changes in labour supply and the influence of rural trade unions

The political economy of class compromise: trade unions, capital-labour relations and development in North East Brazil

This article investigates how capitallabour relations (encompassing processes of class formation, representation, struggle and compromise) impact on emerging regions developmental trajectories. It does so because much of development studies portray labour simply as an input (human capital) subordinate to more fundamental processes such as capital investment and accumulation. The paper draws on and extends insights gained from the new working class studies and global commodity chains literatures in order to examine evolving capitallabour relationsfrom relatively militant struggles to class compromisein an emerging sector of North East Brazilian export horticulture. It identifies sources of workers structural and associational power and uses these to explain significant gains achieved by the regions rural trade union during the formation of the export horticulture sector. It then asks, why, despite continuing structural power, the regions trade union has entered into a class compromise with the leading employers via (a) reducing its militancy and its strategy of striking against employers to win concessions, and (b) shifting its objectives in terms of concessions sought. It speculates on the impacts of these changing class relations on the regions developmental trajectory

Institutions, upgrading and development: evidence From north east Brazilian export horticulture

The central concern of Global Commodity (or Value) Chain analysis is to identify upgrading possibilities for poor country (or region) producers as a mechanism for accelerating local-level development. Whilst the framework has made impressive progress in explaining how chain governance impacts upon suppliers' upgrading opportunities it has been relatively weak in integrating local-level institutions into its analysis and policy advice. This paper addresses this weakness by focusing on the interaction between suppliers' organisations and state development agencies in facilitating systematic upgrading for large numbers of producers. It is based on research on export grape production in North East Brazil, and finds that whilst exporters may be particularly well informed about changing market and buyer requirements, state agencies play a key role in both establishing initial conditions of production and assisting producers to overcome evolving technical gaps generated by fast-changing markets

Labour process and workers' bargaining power in export grape production, North East Brazil

This article uses the Global Commodity Chain (GCC) framework to investigate labour regimes in export grape production in the São Francisco (SF) valley, North East Brazil. A combination of strict northern retailer requirements and producers’ ability to target export windows leads to an increasingly complex labour process. Whilst much GCC literature focusing on export agriculture concludes that labour is relatively powerless, this article presents a rather different case. The need to upgrade production continually in response to retailers’ demands gives workers strategic leverage which, together with a strong and continuing tradition of rural trade union organization, means that they have been able to extract significant concessions from exporting farms