Global Production Networks and Non-linearity

1. Global Production Networks and Non-linearity Alex Hughes (Newcastle University)

2. Outline • Conceptual significance of non-linearity • Responsibility, ethical consumption and changing governance of GPNs 1) Networks of responsibility 2) Ethical and emotional relations 3) ‘Circuits of culture’ and knowledgeable governance 4) Spaces of responsible governance • Discussion: revising metaphors of non-linearity?

3. Conceptual significance of non-linearity • ‘Metaphors matter’ (Coe and Hess; Kelly) • Challenging unidirectional linearity of ‘chain’ metaphor • Challenging deterministic analysis (Dicken) • Network metaphor- webs of interdependence, complexity, multi-directional flows • Circuits of culture and knowledge flow

4. Responsibility, ethical consumption and changing governance of GPNs • Globalisation, trade liberalisation and perceived ‘regulation gap’ • Proliferation of ‘private’ codes and standards in global economy • Standards and corporate responsibility • Ethical trade, ethical consumption and GPN governance

5. 1) Networks of responsibility

6. 2) Emotional and ethical relations • Emotional geographies, the economy and GPNs • Capitalising on affect

7. “Consumption is itself a series of affective fields and more and more of the industry that investigates consumer wants and desires is given over to identifying possible emotional pressure points” (Thrift, 2006: 286).

8. 2) Emotional and ethical relations • Emotional geographies, the economy and GPNs • Capitalising on affect • Ethical consumption and the unsettled geographies of GPNs • Affective campaigns for ethical trade

9. 3) ‘Circuits of culture’ and knowledgeable governance • Ethical codes, standards and auditing • Managerial discourse of responsibility • Circuits of culture and the knowledge economy • Spaces of ethical knowledge circulation (projects, temporary clusters, mobile knowledge workers ... ) • Emphasis on knowledge translation (Williams, Faulconbridge)

10. 4) Spaces of responsible GPN governance • Spatiality of responsible governance in GPNs • UK-US comparative analysis of ethical trading organisation • Territorial embeddedness

11. Absence of campaigning against other US supermarkets: “The US consumers, despite the fact that there’s campaigns around migrant workers and people recollect, you know, they recollect the grape boycotts, there are current campaigns around migrant workers ... There hasn’t been a consumer campaign, so it’s not very well integrated with the campaigns around toys and clothing – it’s not the same campaigners, they haven’t worked the same way, there isn’t any equivalent of the Fair Labor Association for food ... If you were to be able to communicate to shoppers at supermarkets in the US, it would be a new idea; they don’t go in thinking about it, the way they do in Europe”. (Interview with President, Social Accountability International, 24/02/06).

12. 4) Spaces of responsible GPN governance • Spatiality of responsible governance in GPNs • UK-US comparative analysis of ethical trading organisation • Territorial embeddedness • Network embeddedness • ‘Constellations of interconnected practices’ (Coe and Bunnell; Faulconbridge) for ethical trading development and GPN governance • Trans-local translation of ethical knowledge (networks, circuits and/or rhizomes)

13. Conclusions • Addressing call for a “’cultural political economy’ of global production networks” (Coe and Hess) • emotional and ethical practices shaping GPN governance • Developing understanding of knowledge flow in GPNs • knowledge creation and translation • trans-scalar flows of knowledge translation shaping GPN governance • Developing non-linear conceptual frameworks