Local labor struggles in global value chains: Control and agency of smallholders and farmworkers in export commodities in the Global South

• Applicant: Dr. Caroline Hambloch
• Subject Area: Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Policy, Agricultural Sociology ; Human Geography
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 545220057

Trade for development is a salient policy for poverty reduction, income growth and job creation in the Global South. Yet, it overlooks that in many cases smallholders and workers face 'adverse incorporation' into global value chains (GVCs), which does not improve their living standards but rather exacerbates existing inequalities and poverty. While there is increasing recognition of labor dynamics in GVCs, firm-centric analysis remains dominant. It fails to analyze the broader dynamics that lead to the subordinate inclusion of smallholders and workers in agricultural GVCs in the Global South and their constitutive role in the (re)production of GVCs. To address these gaps, the project seeks to investigate the interplay between firm control over smallholders and workers versus and agency in different contexts and across scales, and under what conditions they can challenge subordinate inclusion in agricultural GVCs. It takes an emancipatory view of smallholders and workers, focusing on formal and informal acts of agency in challenging and shaping unequal power relations in GVCs. The project examines the mediating factors of land control and access, modes of coordination, and standards and certification. The conceptual innovation of this project is to bring together perspectives on labor regimes and control, labor agency, and agrarian political economy to examine the multi-scalar interplay of smallholder and worker control and agency. Labor regime analysis demonstrates how new forms of labor control emerge as a result of the restructuring of the agrifood system, such as the emergence of new standards and certifications. The analysis of labor agency highlights how smallholders and workers navigate, resist, and potentially change precarious labor regimes. Agrarian political economy helps us to deepen our understanding of the social relations of production and exchange, and the heterogeneity of firms, smallholders, and workers engaged in agricultural GVCs. These perspectives help us to understand how firms and smallholder and labor agency are intertwined at different scales and the implications for smallholders and workers to improve conditions and outcomes. The project combines an exploratory sequential mixed-methods research design with a comparative case study design. It uses empirical methods from agricultural economics (surveys), agricultural sociology and political economy (interviews, focus groups, participant observation), and GVC studies (interviews, firm and sector analysis). The selected case studies are the Philippines (banana, oil palm), Colombia (coffee, oil palm), and Malawi (tobacco, tea). The case studies will provide insights into how different forms of value creation and capture lead to different forms of smallholder and labor control and agency. Ultimately, this research aims to provide insights into mechanisms for empowerment and pathways for solidarity to improve conditions in agricultural GVCs for the marginalized.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups