An analysis of the homeworker network in Pakistan: a global justice network (GJN) perspective

Using a global justice network (GJN) approach, in this article I examine the localization of a transnational network for homeworker rights. Based on my field research undertaken in Pakistan between January 2015 and December 2017, I compare different organizing approaches to establish how a politics of vulnerability may be transformed into a politics of voice and mobility. I found that, from the vantage point of the homeworker, the process of organizing rather than the results achieved is what really matters. In the case of Pakistan, union‐style organizing by the Home‐worker Federation, which is mindful of gender and class hierarchies, enhances the homeworkers’ voice, agency and mobility, while also building translocal labour solidarities. Conversely, an NGO‐led national network, with its top–down approach, perpetuates the very hierarchies it was mission bound to dismantle, thus forcing the women to stay spatially imprisoned. Without arguing that one institutional form is superior to the other, I demonstrate that for a GJN to articulate diverse local and global struggles it must be mindful of the hierarchies and boundaries that isolate and silence marginalized workers. It must also genuinely include the grassroots in the production and transference of knowledge.     

‘Shades of grey’: the World Bank,knowledge networks and linked ecologies of academic engagement

The Global Development Network (GDN) and the Researchers Alliance for Development (RAD) are networks linking the professional ecology of the World Bank to the diverse research ecologies of universities and think‐tanks. These ‘knowledge networks’ can entangle research environments extensively with policy communities and the institutional interests of powerful organizations. Connecting different professional ecologies via networks creates complex sets of relationships between researchers and policy makers. The ‘grey areas’ of professional overlap highlight the ‘co‐production’ of (social) science in development policy. The author based her analysis of the dual dynamics of network autonomy and co‐option on participant observation of GDN and RAD as a past member of the governing bodies of both networks.     

A global energy network? The expansion and integration of non‐triad national oil companies

It is widely perceived that the rising influence of state‐owned energy companies from outside the traditional triad (USA, EU, Japan) is transforming the structure of the global energy market and generating a new wave of resource‐nationalism. There is, however, little empirical analysis of how this process has unfolded. Addressing this empirical gap, in this article I employ a longitudinal social network analysis of the changing corporate relations of five major non‐triad state‐owned energy companies in the period 1997–2007. The findings indicate that, in terms of corporate relations, alongside the global expansion of the non‐triad state‐owned energy companies, there was also an increased integration between them and the private energy companies during this decade. This implies that apart from the resurgence of resource‐nationalism – frequently highlighted in academia and politics – this period also witnessed an increasing transnationalization of the global energy market.     

World City Networks and Global Commodity Chains: towards a world-systems' integration

There are two literatures that explicitly describe the spaces of flows that constitute contemporary globalization – World City Network analysis and Global Commodity Chain analysis. We explore the possibilities of their integration by returning to their common origins in world-systems analysis. Each model is described and critiqued and it is argued that each can be used to address some of the other's limitations. This is illustrated through world city process additions to understanding the coffee commodity chain and commodity chain additions to understanding Mexico City and Santiago's positioning in the World City Network. This complementarity is just a first step towards a more complete integration; the conclusion describes the next steps towards just such a research agenda.     

A global sense of migrant places: towards a place perspective in the study of migrant transnationalism

Contemporary transnational migrants have complex social lives in that they live in a number of different cross‐border social networks at the same time. Most transmigration scholars try to grasp this social complexity of migrant transnationalism by using a network lens. In this article, I argue in favour of adding a place lens to the analytical tool kit of transmigration scholars. Although a network lens works well for studying the internal complexity of cross‐border social networks, a place lens is more useful for gaining an understanding of their external complexity, in other words the ways these networks interrelate. By drawing on geographical and anthropological literature on open and relational understandings of place, and especially on the work of Doreen Massey and Arjun Appadurai, I shall show that interrelating migrant networks are visible in place in two ways. On the one hand, migrant places are meeting places of social networks, and on the other hand they are sites (translocalities) where transmigrants can reach out to people in other places.     

The global corporate elite after the financial crisis: evidence from the transnational network of interlocking directorates

What impact did the recent financial crisis have on the corporate elite's international network? Has corporate governance taken on an essentially national structure or have transnational networks remained robust? We investigate this issue by comparing the networks of interlocking directorates among the 176 largest corporations in the world economy in 1976, 1996, 2006 and 2013. We find that corporate elites have not retrenched into their national business communities: the transnational network increased in relative importance and remained largely intact during the crisis lasting from 2006 to 2013. However, this network does not depend – as it used to do – on a small number of big linkers but on a growing number of single linkers. The network has become less hierarchical. As a group, the corporate elite has become more transnational in character. We see this as indicative of a recomposition of the corporate elite from a national to a transnational orientation.     

Antagonistic governance in South African fruit global production networks: a neo‐Gramscian perspective

Governance is a core focus of the global value chain (GVC) and global production network (GPN) literatures. Recent research claims ‘complementary’ or ‘synergistic’ governance, achieved through the confluence of private, public and civil society actors, is required for sustainable social gains. While moving beyond a narrow focus on economic coordination, such analysis lacks a sufficiently nuanced examination of power relations. In this article, I draw on neo‐Gramscian perspectives to account for ongoing contestation, positing that governance needs to be understood in the context of a broader hegemonic project. ‘Antagonistic governance’ is proposed to conceptualize contestation within and across diverse initiatives, which forge, challenge and transform hegemonic stability in GVC/GPNs. I explore this through the South African fruit sector, in particular, a labour crisis in 2012/13. I argue that we need to move beyond apolitical readings of governance to account for the material and discursive practices through which contestation gets played out, compromises are forged, and hegemonic order is maintained.     

The promise and perils of using big data in the study of corporate networks: problems,diagnostics and fixes

Network data on connections between corporate actors and entities – for instance through co‐ownership ties or elite social networks – are increasingly available to researchers interested in probing the many important questions related to the study of modern capitalism. Given the analytical challenges associated with the nature of the subject matter, variable data quality and other problems associated with currently available data on this scale, we discuss the promise and perils of using big corporate network data (BCND). We propose a standard procedure for helping researchers deal with BCND problems. While acknowledging that different research questions require different approaches to data quality, we offer a schematic platform that researchers can follow to make informed and intelligent decisions about BCND issues and address these through a specific work‐flow procedure. For each step in this procedure, we provide a set of best practices for how to identify, resolve and minimize the BCND problems that arise.     

Mobility hub or hollow? Cross‐border travelling in the Mediterranean, 1995–2016

The Mediterranean is often portrayed as a hub of human mobility. In this article, we test this widespread view by exploring the structure of travel flows in the region over the last two decades (1995–2016). We find that mobility is much higher and increasing more strongly along the northern than along the southern shore, thus creating a growing mobility divide. South–north and north–south movements are even scarcer and stagnate or even decline over time. With a Gini coefficient of .87, mobility flows are distributed extremely unequally across country pairs in the Mediterranean. Community detection algorithms reconfirm that mobility predominantly takes place in disparate clusters around the Mediterranean, not across it. These findings imply that a ‘neo‐Braudelian’ view of the Mediterranean as a mobility hub is less justified than a ‘Rio Grande’ perspective that conceives of the Mediterranean as a mobility hollow. Multivariate regression models for network data suggest that geographical distance and, to a lesser extent, political visa regulations, explain the unequal mobility structure better than differences in economic well‐being.     

The world according to iTunes: mapping urban networks of music production

In this article, I present a social network analysis that explores and maps relational urban networks of production within the global recorded music industry. Within the analysis, recorded music albums are viewed as temporary market‐based projects that bring together teams of skilled creative workers in recording studios across the globe. New tools and techniques for networking studios in geographically distant locations give mobile musically creative workers the ability to coordinate musical recordings on a global scale, resulting in new relational geographies of music production. An innovative approach is taken to the social network analysis to assess the connectedness of cities and determine the centrality and power of cities within networks of production for three major Anglophone digital music markets. The result is a mapping of the relational urban networks of music production as indicated through the interdependencies between projects, studios and local urban agglomerations.