Doctoral Dissertation Research: Refashioning Transnational Spaces; The Case of Textiles and Apparel in Kenya

北卡罗来纳大学的蒂娜·曼吉里，查珀尔山重塑跨国空间：肯尼亚的纺织品和服装纺织和服装是非洲后殖民经济发展中的重要产业。进口替代政策使各国能够发展布料和服装生产的制造业，供当地消费，并在20世纪80年代被证明对寻求配额的外国制造商(特别是台湾制造商)具有吸引力。贸易自由化规则现在正在改变这些产业建立的条件。对外承包和直接投资决策越来越多地受到出口导向型服装生产的迫切需要的影响。取消配额和降低关税增加了非洲生产商面临的竞争压力和困难。然而，面向国际市场的合同生产只是非洲布料生产更广泛的一部分。本研究项目将考察肯尼亚国际服装生产的三个主要体系的结构和相互关系：(I)具有自己的跨国设计、生产和贸易历史的“非洲”印花布；(Ii)主要面向西方大市场的出口导向型大批量生产服装；(Iii)来自这些市场的进口二手服装。这三个服装系统及其相互关联的生产网络展示了全球经济和文化一体化的新地理。通过重点关注这三个网络，调查员将检查它们之间的相互联系，并分析特定公司的案例历史、服装进口政策以及它们所生产的材料环境(如出口加工区和二手服装批发/零售市场)。在研究的每个阶段，访谈和焦点小组将就性别、阶级和宗教与全球纺织品和服装商品链的相互作用提供经验贡献。这些材料将被用来扩大全球商品链分析提供的可能性和潜力，这些分析对身份及其与包括纺织品和服装在内的全球链的联系问题保持压倒性的沉默。该项目将通过重点研究全球南方国家之间的贸易和生产的历史和当代网络，对日益复杂的全球经济地理情况提供新的见解。在有关全球服装的当代文献中，南南贸易问题和国内市场的作用被严重低估。然而，了解服装生产和消费关系及网络产生和维持的更广泛背景，对于避免将“竞争力”和“增长”等概念归化至关重要。同样，需要注意这些背景，以提供概念上的替代方案，以取代对全球化的规范性理解，因为它们从根本上局限于西方的做法和经验。通过探索南方经济和文化社区之间的联系，该项目将既增进基本知识，又为非洲和其他发展战略日益转向区域合作的国家提供政策见解。

Tina MangieriUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel HillRefashioning Transnational Spaces: The Case of Textiles and Apparel in KenyaTextiles and clothing were important industries in Africa's post-colonial economic development. Import substitution policies enabled countries to develop a manufacturing sector of cloth and clothing production for local consumption, and proved attractive for quota seeking foreign manufacturers in the 1980s (especially Taiwanese producers). Trade liberalization rules are now transforming the conditions under which these industries were built. Foreign contracting and direct investment decisions are increasingly shaped by the exigencies of export-oriented apparel production. Quota removal and tariff reduction have increased competitive pressures and the difficulties facing African producers. Contract production for international markets is, however, only one part of the wider tapestry of African cloth production. This research project will examine the structure of and interrelationships among the three main systems of international clothing production in Kenya: (i) "African" print cloth with its own transnational histories of design, production, and trade; (ii) export-oriented mass produced clothing primarily for large Western markets; and (iii) imported secondhand clothing sourced from those same markets. These three clothing systems and their interrelated production networks illustrate new geographies of global economic and cultural integration. By focusing on these three networks, the investigator will examine their interconnections and analyze case histories of specific companies, clothing import policies, and the material landscapes they have produced (such as Export Processing Zones and wholesale/retail used apparel markets). Interviews and focus groups at each stage of the research will provide empirical contributions on the interactions of gender, class, and religion with global textile and apparel commodity chains. This material will be used to expand the possibilities and potential offered by global commodity chain analyses which remain overwhelmingly silent on issues of identity and their articulation with global chains, including those for textiles and apparel. This project will provide new insights into increasingly complex global economic geographies by focusing on historical and contemporary networks of trade and production between countries of the global South. Issues of South-South trade and the role of domestic markets are greatly under-represented in the contemporary literature on global apparel. Yet, understanding the broader contexts within which clothing production and consumption relations and networks are produced and sustained is vital to avoid naturalizing notions like 'competitiveness' and 'growth.' Similarly, attention to these contexts is needed to provide conceptual alternatives to normative understandings of globalization as fundamentally limited to Western practices and experiences. By exploring the links between economies and cultural communities of the South, the project will both advance basic knowledge and offer policy insights to African and other countries whose development strategies are turning increasingly toward regional cooperation.