The Rise of a Global Garment Industry and the Reimagination of Worker Solidarity

Abstract

In 1996, Bill Roseberry published an article in American Anthropologist entitled `The Rise of Yuppie Coffees and the Reimagination of Class in the United States'. In it, he explored the connections that linked the rise of specialty coffees marketed at Zabars and Starbucks to new class configurations of consumerism in the US and to new production arrangements in the coffee-producing countries. The article seeks to apply this approach to the analysis of another commodity chain: that of apparel. It explains how recent changes in the global apparel industry are shaped by power and experienced by workers and consumers. It seeks to bridge the divide between industrialized and developing nations by showing the commonalities (as well as differences) experienced by the industry's workers in the US and abroad. And it shows how global production patterns have given rise to global resistance strategies, as workers forge bonds with social movements outside of the factory and develop transnational alliances. In the spirit of Roseberry's work, this account seeks to meld cultural analysis with political economy, and to attend to historical contingency, without losing sight of corporate and state power.