Rethinking Global Commodity Chains

Abstract

The global commodity chains (GCCs) approach is an insightful way to understand issues of `development' and production and consumption differentials across space. It potentially offers insight into the issue of `ecologically unequal exchange'. However, we propose three revisions to conventional GCC analysis. First, many of the GCC studies tend to focus on only part of the commodity chain — and we need, in effect, to `lengthen' the chains. Stephen Bunker (1984) emphasized that `commodities can emerge only from locally based extractive and productive systems' (p. 1017). Beginning GCC analysis with these primary products forces the examination of various modes, techniques and technologies of extractive regimes, as well as the key roles of transportation and communications systems. Second, focusing on this `longer chain' requires analysis of spatially based disarticulations and contestations. Mineral deposits and agricultural economies tend to be tied to specific `natural' geographies — thus, `enclave economies' frequently develop that are globally integrated but locally disarticulated. Transportation systems (especially of bulk products) are extremely vulnerable to disruption and change dramatically over time. Third, we explicitly focus on tightly integrated social and natural processes across a range of industries. The goal is to focus on the relationship between long-term changes in the world economy and the natural environment, as well as on research in environmental studies that examines `ecologically unequal exchange' and points to prospects for sustainable development.