Moving players,traversing perspectives: Global value chains,production networks and Ghanaian football labour migration

This article examines the production and transnational export of Ghanaian football labour. It does so via a cross-disciplinary approach that utilises perspectives rooted in the sociology of development (global value chains) and economic geography (global production networks). The article is underpinned by two central arguments. Firstly, it contends that the GVC framework is useful in accounting for how Ghanaian players are produced and prepared for the international market, identifying the key agents and agencies involved, mapping the geography of production and export and assessing the institutional context within which the trade operates locally, nationally and internationally. The second draws on the GPN perspective to argue that while Ghanaian football labour migration remains a process contoured by uneven asymmetries of power that favour actors, stakeholders and entities in the global North, there are currently segments of the production–export chain where power is much more diffuse and some benefits are captured in the global South. The paper draws on interview data and observations gleaned from four periods of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in Ghana between January 2008 and June 2011.     

The rise of strategic partner firms and reconfiguration of personal computer production networks in China: Insights from the emerging laptop cluster in Chongqing

In recent theorization of the Global Production Network (GPN) framework, viz. “GPN 2.0 theory” (Coe and Yeung, 2015), firm-specific strategies namely intra-firm coordination, inter-firm control, inter-firm partnership and extra-firm bargaining are conceptualized to understand the changing dynamics and reconfiguration of global production networks. Drawing upon the extra-firm strategies in the GPN 2.0 theory, this paper examines the spatial and organizational reconfiguration of personal computer production networks in China since late 2000s. Based on the information and data collected from years of observation and in-depth interviews with various firms and extra-firm actors, particularly government officials during June 2014 and December 2016, this study explores the emerging laptop cluster in Chongqing, a centrally-governed municipality in West China, which produced 40% of the world laptop computers in 2015. This paper argues that the rapid development in Chongqing in a short span has been attributed to the rising power of strategic partner firms of lead firms, primarily Taiwan-based contract manufacturers (e.g. Foxconn). It sheds light on the emerging strategic coupling between strategic partner firms and local government in Chongqing, which has brought about the reconfiguration of laptop production networks from the prevailed lead-firm centric to the emerging strategic partnership pattern. This study enriches the developing literature on the rise of strategic partner firms by extending the firm-centric analysis to extra-firm strategies, which echoes the extra-regional dynamics advocated recently by the Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) perspective.     

Trans-scalar embeddedness and governance deficits in global production networks: Crisis in South African fruit

The governance of labour in global production networks (GPNs) has become a critical area of concern amongst academics and policymakers alike. To date, GPN research has focused on the role of private company codes and multi-stakeholder ethical initiatives primarily driven by lead-firms. Other GPN studies highlight the critical role of civil society organisations (CSOs) in challenging lead-firm purchasing practices and shaping regulatory outcomes at local production sites. However, GPN research has not sufficiently incorporated the role of nation states in regulating work through legislative frameworks and enforcement regimes, often referred to in the literature as ‘state’ or ‘public’ governance. This is despite a ‘regulatory renaissance’ taking place across certain developing countries, seeking to strengthen their national regulatory labour institutions (Piore and Schrank, 2008:1).The GPN framework provides an analytical lens through which to conceptualise cross-cutting strands of trans-scalar governance regimes, involving complex networks of state, private and civil society actors operating at multiple scales. Notions of territorial and societal embeddedness are used to elucidate how global ethical standards derived from particular country contexts become enmeshed in national regulatory frameworks and local societal relations, shaping governance outcomes for precarious workers incorporated into GPNs. The paper draws attention to the ‘trans-scalar embeddedness’ of labour governance regimes which interact across geographical scales and, in the case of South African fruit, reflect a ‘trans-scalar governance deficit’ for precarious workers. It is argued that the influence of national regulatory regimes should be more fully incorporated into analytical frameworks for understanding governance outcomes in GPNs.     

Re-scaling collective bargaining: union responses to restructuring in the North American auto industry

Historically, political struggles to define the geographical scale at which labour relations and collective bargaining will be conducted have been of crucial significance to the labour movement. Today, workers and their unions face very difficult challenges. In many manufacturing industries changes in the organizational structure of production at different geographical scales have undermined the effectiveness of the organizing and collective bargaining strategies associated with traditional industrial unionism. This paper focuses on collective bargaining strategies developed by North American autoworkers’ unions to respond to the extensive restructuring of the automotive industry that took place during the 1990s. These strategies include innovations in the structure and content of collective bargaining and efforts to redefine the scale at which collective bargaining takes place. Following a brief discussion of the challenge posed by the integration of Mexico into a continent-wide production system, the analysis focuses on the strategies devised by the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union during the 1996 and 1999 rounds of collective bargaining to address issues raised by outsourcing and modular manufacturing. With outsourcing, the automakers are not so much eliminating jobs as they are deciding who gets to do them, at what price, and under what working conditions. With modular manufacturing, the organizational boundaries between firms are blurring and the terms and conditions of work in one firm arguably are becoming dependent upon management decisions made in another firm. The CAW’s response has been to develop new collective bargaining strategies including the concepts of ‘work ownership’ and ‘satellite bargaining’ which involves redefining the traditional geographical extent of the bargaining unit. While the empirical focus is on the North American automobile industry, the general issues related to the re-scaling of production, and especially outsourcing and modular manufacturing, are common across a range of manufacturing industries.     

“This is a Montreal Issue”: Negotiating responsibility in global production and investment networks

While geographers have increasingly focused on how global commodity and production networks create new ‘geographies of responsibility’ there has been little empirical work considering how responsibility is worked into management systems and social activism in such networks. Drawing on literature from global production networks, geographies of responsibility and other literatures, this paper explores the dynamic and contested ways in which concepts of responsibility can play a role in network regulation. Both foreign direct investment and commodity networks (here referred to as ‘global production and investment networks’) are subject to complex negotiations and compromises involving corporate social responsibility and sustainability initiatives as well as shareholder activist, human rights, labor, and environmental activism. This is illustrated by reference to conflicts in Canada over Alcan, Inc.’s investments from 1993 to 2007 in the Utkal Alumina Project in Orissa, India. The project involved significant socio-environmental conflict. In Canada, Alcan’s investment was met by civil society campaigns that tested the company’s commitments to sustainability and corporate social responsibility. The case study suggests revising theories of geographies of responsibility. While foreign direct investment can create new relationships between distant others, these are fluid and contingent and not necessarily desirable. Rather than see networks as a source of responsibility we should work to ensure that the relationships that networks foster be structured to ensure our deeper values are respected.     

The role and performance of ground-based networks in tracking the evolution of the ozone layer

In the 1980s, ground-based monitoring of the ozone layer played a key role in the discovery of the Antarctic Ozone Hole as well as in the first documentation of significant winter and spring long-term downward trends in the populated mid-latitude regions. The article summarizes the close-to-hundred-year-long history of ground-based measurements of stratospheric ozone, and more recent observations of constituents that influence its equilibrium. Ozone observations began long before the recognition of the impact of increasing emissions of manmade ozone-depleting substances on ozone and therefore on UV levels, human health, ecosystems and the Earth climate. The historical ozone observations prior to 1980s are used as a reference for the assessments of the state of the ozone layer linked to the enforcement of the Montreal Protocol. In this paper, we describe the worldwide monitoring networks and their ozone observations used to determine long-term trends with an accuracy of a few percent per decade. Since 1989, the ground-based monitoring activities have provided support for the amendments of the Montreal Protocol (MP). They include monitoring of (a) the ozone total column and the vertical distribution at global scale, (b) the ozone-depleting substances (ODS) related to the MP such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and their decomposition products in the stratosphere, and (c) the atmospheric species playing a role in ozone depletion, e.g., nitrogen oxides, water vapor, aerosols, polar stratospheric clouds. We highlight important accomplishments in the atmospheric monitoring performed by the Global Atmosphere Watch program (GAW) run under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and by the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC). We also address the complementary roles of ground-based networks and satellite instruments. High-quality ground-based measurements have been used to evaluate ozone variabilities and long-term trends, assess chemistry climate models, and check the long-term stability of satellite data, including more recently the merged satellite time-series developed for the detection of ozone recovery at global scale, which might be further modified by climate change.     

The shift between worlds of production as an innovative process in the wine industry in Castile and Leon (Spain)

This article draws on the theory of conventions and the concept of worlds of production for an interpretation of the transformations of a regional production system over several decades. Wine production in the Spanish region of Castile and Leon has shifted from a world of local and interpersonal production (prevailing before 1960) to the current preferred orientation towards quality markets, having passed through an intermediate phase (1960-1980) of table and bulk wines industrial production. Recently, indications have appeared of a return to an interpersonal and neo-artisanal production on the part of prestigious winemakers who distribute their wines to selected international clients. This path is the result of a gradual modification of the dominant conventions of the business, which has experienced a spectacular development in Castile and Leon, whose wines are now appreciated in many foreign markets. This evolution of conventions may be interpreted as an innovative process maintained to challenge the trends and demands of the market. But this argument does not explain how conventions change and how these changes spread along the production chain. Therefore, this article discusses the contribution of three factors to this shift across different worlds of wine production: organization of the production chain; regulations regarding the protection of food differentiated according to its geographic origin; and the setting up of a regional innovation system which supports the wine sector.     

煤炭地下气化及对中国天然气发展的战略意义

在实现碳达峰碳中和(“双碳”)目标和保障国家能源安全的双重需求驱动下,我国煤炭地下气化(UCG)迎来了新的历史发展机遇期。为科学制定技术攻关路线、加快产业化发展,按时间顺序梳理了煤炭地下气化试验历程,将其分为矿井式气化、直井/定向井气化、水平井气化3个发展阶段,探究了不同阶段推动气化技术革新的底层逻辑,从技术和非技术2个方面分析了未能产业化的原因并提出产业化发展建议。研究表明：(1) 水平井+可控注入点后退气化工艺不仅能够有效规避浅层气化在地表沉降、淡水污染方面的风险,而且在扩大煤炭纵向开发范围、提高单井控煤量、提升粗煤气品质、保障连续气化方面具有优势,是当前和今后一个时期的主流技术路线。(2) 我国是现场试验时间最长的国家,长期处于矿井式气化阶段,虽然我国中深层煤炭地下气化攻关试验刚起步,但是由于该技术攻关难度大、技术成熟度低,主要富煤国家在技术研发上基本属于同一起跑线,有希望成为我国钻井式气化技术弯道超车的新赛道。(3) 技术适用性不强是造成矿井式、直井式气化产业化困难的主要技术原因,技术成熟度较低是制约水平井气化产业化的主要技术原因,长期稳产高产问题尚未得到彻底解决。(4) 常规天然气低成本开发和页岩气革命的冲击,民众对浅层气化诱发环境污染的担忧,政府对煤炭地下气化的政策转向,是导致国外试验终止的主要非技术原因;发展规划长期空白、科研试验主体相对单一、科研投入不足、产业扶持政策未出台、联合创新机制未建立是阻碍我国气化产业化的非技术原因。提出我国UCG产业化建议：新时期要充分认识煤炭地下气化技术的复杂性和挑战性,按照“干成”“干好”两个维度,破解“长期稳产”和“高产优产”两个核心问题,通过同步推进科研攻关和现场试验不断提高技术成熟度,在生产端采用“先物理采气后化学气化”的梯级开发方式避免与煤层气开发竞争,在利用端积极探索与油气、新能源、煤化工融合发展模式以提高经济效益。作为一种“人造气藏”的颠覆性开发方式,煤炭地下气化攻关成功后能为其他矿产资源的流态化开发提供技术借鉴,助推我国化石能源非常规开发技术实现新跨越。