Contested understandings in the global garment industry after Rana Plaza

Sarah Ashwin, Naila Kabeer and Elke Schüßler

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This Introduction synthesizes the key themes of this special cluster of articles and explores the implications of the three contributions on garment supply chains after the Rana Plaza disaster. The three articles examine the perspectives of key stakeholders in garment value chains — global buyers, managers of garment factories in Bangladesh, and workers at these factories — and analyses their responses to the new governance initiatives that emerged in the aftermath of Rana Plaza. Placing the contrasting perspectives of these stakeholders alongside each other starkly reveals how their different positions within hierarchically organized global value chains form the particular lens through which they view post-Rana Plaza initiatives. This special cluster scrutinizes the particular understandings of these stakeholders and reveals the very different capacity for voice and influence that they bring to bear in shaping outcomes. It reflects on the contradictory imperatives faced by actors in the garment industry caught between a logic of competition on the one hand and global labour standards norms on the other. The Introduction concludes by examining the prospects for a re-embedding of the market in global value chains via the activation of civil society.

JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10 pages
Date: 2020-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Development and Change, 1, September, 2020, 51(5), pp. 1296 - 1305. ISSN: 0012-155X

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