The role of resistance in a retail production network: Protests against supermarkets in India

In many developing economies, a partial or full liberalization of the retail trade has encouraged the establishment of supermarkets. This innovation and the consequent shifts in market share can evoke protest from a spectrum of traditional and small‐scale retailers, wholesalers, farmers and market workers whose organized resistance can influence the investment policies and decisions of governments and corporations. Yet, so far, resistance is rarely considered in global production networks analysis. The paper uses the case of the ongoing resistance and protest against the entry of modern supermarket operations in cities in India to show how such resistance and protest groups have influenced retail investors and public opinion, and gained collective power. In the Indian democracy, these mobilizations have developed a strong enough political influence in certain geographic regions to curtail the operations of transnational corporations and induce shifts in corporate expansion strategies.