Week3: Global Commodity Networks (GCNs) in footwear

Qiuying Lin (Britney)
ASA 141
Week 3

I gain a multi-angle of view in both globalization and postmodern society based on the market in footwear. From the beginning, I'm not surprised to see the interdependent collaboration across country. But by continually reading the details in the analysis of three main parts in footwear market, leather sourcing in Argentina, shoe production in Brazil and consumer market in the United States, I completely immerse into learning in global commodity network by developing deep understanding of postmodern society.

A global commodity network is a set of transnational interorganizational linkages that constitute the production, distribution and consumption of a commodity, by the definition from Korzeniewicz. From the data on United states shoe import, we can easily notice that the percentage of total imports from Brazil is extremely increasing. The reason is that Brazil shoe manufactures receives a reliable raw material, leather, sources from Argentina, where shoe industry organization contained all tanneries is closely related to the politics. In this case, tanner organization has the power to generate the political economy favoring in the export of leathering, which offers the availability of quality of Argentina leather. However, this triggers the complains from domestic shoe manufactures in Argentina because of the higher prices and lower quality compared with other countries, as a leading producer.

Besides the good advantages from leather source in Argentina, Brazil also has three other interrelated factors: the geographic concentration of leather manufacturing in Vale dos Sinos, a common ethnic background because of the same German heritage among producers and supplies from the settlement of immigration, and the facilitation of export intermediaries, who helps producer predict the worldwide fashion trend based on research. The terms "competitive collectivism" raises my interest. This is an idea about the sharing of technology and information which promotes the welfare of whole sector. This exactly is one of the factor in postmodern society. Technology has been a major occupational category.

Take a look in the footwear consumption market in the United States, I learn that the change of pattern in human mind greatly influences the shape of shoe market. The women suffrage movement exposed the foot in women dressing, which increased the demand for mass-produced and popularly-priced shoes. The move to suburb among middle class created the motion of casual lifestyle, which expansed the new forms of shoes retailing: shopping mall, suburban branches of department stores and self-service shoe stores.

We can easily to see that we can't learn the GCN by analyzing the national and international variables alone. Moreover, we need postmodern perspectives, the prominent power of technology, extraordinary fragment and diversity, omnipresent consumerism, imperceptible universal in common and etc., to help us understand the GCN as well. The more I have learned, the more connections I find, and more questions need to be answered. Back to the Hanbok study in previous class, international visitors wearing Hanbok when they are in Korea gives me a sense of diversity. And the reason why Hanbok designers add new elements in traditional Hanbok to make it less nationality and more diverse, the media influence in modern Hanbok industry also reflect the postmodern perspectives. My questions are Why our society contradictorily combines diversity and generality together? How could we take advantage of postmodern perspectives to generate better global commodity network? What fashion elements also reflect postmodern perspectives? What is the trend of change in human perspective after postmodern society?