Workers in Third-World Industrialization
In third-world countries an increasing number of people have been drawn into the process of industrialization as wage workers. The analyses here presented cover the limits set by workers to exploitation in workshop production, ethnicity as a workers' stra
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Robert Boardman PESTICIDES IN WORLD AGRICULTURE Inga Brandell (editor) WORKERS IN THIRD-WORLD INDUSTRIALIZATION Bonnie K. Campbell (editor) POLITICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE INTERNATIONAL DEBT CRISIS Bonnie K. Campbell and John Loxley (editors) STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT IN AFRICA Jerker Carlsson and Timothy M. Shaw (editors) NEWLY INDUSTRIALIZING COUNTRIES AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOUTH-SOUTH RELATIONS David P. Forsythe (editor) HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT THE UNITED NATIONS IN THE WORLD POLITICAL ECONOMY David Glover and Ken Kusterer SMALL FARMERS, BIG BUSINESS William D. Graf (editor) THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE GERMAN POLITICAL ECONOMY Steven Kendall Holloway THE ALUMINIUM MULTINATIONALS AND THE BAUXITE CARTEL Matthew Martin THE CRUMBLING FA;tun.o .
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Map 2 Central Western Mexico: Regions of Small-Scale Industry
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Day-to-day Struggles in Mexican Workshop Production Fiona Wilson
In the 1980s a handful of Mexican researchers discovered evidence of a major growth in small-scale industry and sub-contracting in rural western central Mexico. Their findings were intriguing. They suggest not only the onset of a new period of industrial deconcentration and diffusion but also that significant changes are taking place in patterns of capital accumulation and forms of production in the Mexican countryside. Characteristically these are 'non-traditional' industries employing a predominantly female labour force, producing consumer goods in new ways for distant markets. Though the situation is still far from clear, it appears that processes are at work which to some extent contradict the assumptions generally made about rural social, and economic relations. These phenomena demand greater attention, especially in light of the number of localities involved (at least 50 industrializing small towns in western central Mexico alone) and size of area (large parts of the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes and Michoacan). In this region a wide variety of goods are produced (principally in the clothing, footwear and food sectors) and one can find many different forms of production (ranging from production put out to industrial home workers, domestic enterprises using family labour, workshops employing small labour forces, to factories with over 100 workers). Since 1986 I have been engaged in a research project investigating the emergence of industrial specialization in a single locality in the state of Michoacan and have tried to pay particular attention to its historical and geographical context. Here within what was a relatively impoverished, depressed small town the production of knitwear was introduced some 30 years ago (in 1960) and since then the industry has flourished. From the start production was organized within small workshops which both make knitted cloth from purchased yarn and sew the garments - sweaters, sport shirts and occasionally trousers. 49
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Workers in Third- World
