Peripheral globalization and the resignification of places

Abstract

This article analyzes the new configurations of labor resulting from processes of industrial restructuring and the insertion of new territories into the logic of the global capitalist production. It discusses the re-spatialization processes of industrial sectors favored by the fiscal war between states and municipal governments, and their re-signification in places without an industrial tradition or organized labor. Outsourcing networks incorporate territories previously linked to traditional agricultural activities, or economically stagnant, which provide cheap and educated labor. Our argument is that these situations make it possible to understand the economic incorporation of peripheral regions in global markets, and the impact on current social relations. The place is integrated with the global in distinct, but complementary and heterogeneous ways, hybridizing forms of labor and occupation within the logic of accumulation. We selected three productive sectors in sub-regions of the Northeast, which are representative of the different forms of labor relations where the place is a relevant variable: the clothing sector, software production, and the automotive industry, all deeply integrated into global value chains. These sectors characterize the region's integration into global flows, in which intertwine multiple globalizations.