REGULATION AND PRODUCTION IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD: WHAT ETHNOGRAPHY BRINGS TO COMPARISON

Abstract

Ethnography underscores the need to historically contextualize and spatially localize economic models such as the “industrial district” and concepts used as ahistorical typologies such as “social capital.” This article is based on ethnographic research in Spain, where decentralized footwear production is structured around informal subcontracting networks, and on published works from the Wenzhou area of China. The essay demonstrates the usefulness of the extended case method for the comparison of economic regions whose destinies have articulated in a global political economy. It also illustrates how the abstract use of “social capital” in regional economy models seems to support and justify new forms of corporatism to the economic domain.