Stretching global production networks: The international second-hand clothing trade
Abstract
This
paper aims to stretch the GPN approach through investigating a
second-hand trade network. One of the understudied geographies of the
world economy is the large-scale international trade in second-hand
clothes which are exported from the Global North to Africa. Clothing
collected by charities and commercial recyclers is sold in the
developing world. This article examines how secondhand clothing
commodities are produced in the UK, the international economic
geographies of the used-clothing trade and labour activities in
Mozambique. The societal, network and territorial embeddedness of GPNs
are investigated illuminating how there are coordinated and
non-integrated patterns of trade. Migrant and diaspora populations play
key roles in coordinating activities between some exporters and
importers, whereas in other networks British charities undertake the
more profitable collection and sorting activities and are separated from
African wholesale and retailers. Within global second-hand clothing
networks there are different power relations between charities, firms
and individuals, which enable them to extract more or less value from
second-hand things. The socially and historically embedded roles of
British charities and firms in the collection, sorting and export of
second-hand clothing are discussed and the importance of the material
culture which surrounds these networks of intersecting charitable and
commercial activities are highlighted. The reproduction of
exchange-value in used clothing through socially necessary labour time
in sorting factories is examined. Different case studies are discussed
demonstrating the difficulties of studying the complex webs of networks
with dynamic geographies which constitute second-hand trade. This
article stretches GPN analysis to consider the back-end of the global
economy and explore how profit is accumulated from the trade in
low-value commodities from the Global North to the Global South.
Highlights
►
Stretching the global production network approach to analyse
second-hand trade. ► Reversing the North/South polarity of global
production networks analysis. ► A discussion of the reproduction of
exchange-value in second-hand commodities. ► Empirical mapping of the
geographies of the second-hand clothes trade.
Keywords
- Second-hand;
- Clothing;
- Africa;
- Trade;
- Recycling;
- Global production networks;
- Charity
Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
