Time, Space, and Articulation in the Economic Development of the U.S.-Mexico Border Region from 1940 to 2000

Abstract

Concepts of world-system and articulation of modes of production are used to analyze the economic development of the U.S.-Mexico border region. The designation of centers and of periphery, semiperiphery, and core depends on the nature of the economic activity, where it takes place, and the destinations of the value derived. Assignment of periphery and semiperiphery changes, depending on where the resource is produced, distributed, consumed, and where capital accumulation occurs, as well as to the nature of the commodity. For example, maquilas that assemble products in peripheral regions are tied to plants (semiperipheries) on the U.S. side of the border, from which they receive components to assemble and where they deliver the finished product, but also to transnational corporations in other parts of the U.S. where profit accrues in centers. Production, distribution, and consumption centers exist in the core, periphery, and semiperiphery, where these activities take place. The following topics are reviewed as commodities and articulatory mechanisms: agricultural development, urbanization, labor, the retail and tourism industries and the contraband trade, and the establishment of the Border Industrialization Program.