Global Displacements: The Making of Uneven Development in the Caribbean

For decades, the production and assembly of goods in the global South for consumption in the North has dominated globalization debates. Some argue that these industries push poor nations along a development path. Others are less optimistic, pointing to the depression of wages and labor standards worldwide. Few, however, deny the existence of the development path itself. Taking the approach that the debate foundations must be challenged, Global Displacements argues that the success or failure of a nation to move along a stage–like path fails to grasp the true engine of global production the creation of uneven development. Through an ethnographic engagement with apparel industry restructuring and livelihood strategies of Dominican and Haitian garment workers, Werner reveals how geographies of uneven development are made within, across, and between nations. These new contours of global inequality shape and are shaped by the aspirations and everyday struggles of people in the global South. By shifting the terms of the globalization debate, Werner s monograph opens the door for far broader political deliberations on new generation trade agreements, international labor rights, and new geographies of development and inequality. With scholarly precision, Global Displacements offers illuminating insights into the realities of globalization in the 21st–century world.

Marion Werner is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Her research lies at the intersection of critical development studies, feminist theory, and political economy with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean.