The Transfer of Core-Based Hazardous Production Processes to the Export Processing Zones of the Periphery: The Maquiladora Centers of Northern Mexico

Abstract

Transnational corporations appropriate 'carrying capacity" for the core by transferring the core's hazardous products, production processes, and wastes to the peripheral countries of the world-system. An increasingly important form of this reproduction process is the transfer of core-based hazardous industries to export processing zones (EPZs) locatedin a number of peripheral countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. A specific case is examined in this paper: the transfer of hazardous industries to the maquiladora centers located on the Mexican side of the Mexico-U.S. border. Maquiladoras provide an excellent case for examining what is known about the causes, adverse consequences, and political responses associated with the transfer of core-based hazardous production processes to the EPZs of the periphery.