GBST 226
The Working Globe: North and South Workers in Globalized Production Fall 2023
Division II Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed SOC 226 / GBST 226

The course introduces students to the concept of globalization of production by focusing on how workers from distant cities and villages across the Global North and South are joined together in the same transnational labor processes. We will reflect on case studies that trace the real-world production of everyday goods and services like automobiles, garments, retail, and electronics. We will map global supply chains and investigate how they exploit and reproduce global inequalities. Focusing specifically on the labor process and on the condition of workers, students will acquire a grounded perspective on the global economy, as well as on the dynamics underlying precarity, deindustrialization, and uneven development. The key guiding concern for the course will be to understand the relationship between workers of the North and South: Does global production place these workers in a relation of fundamental conflict, or can a community of interest emerge between them?