No Man's Brand—Brands,Institutions, and Fashion

ABSTRACT Branding has become so intertwined with consumption that today's consumers have often deeply personal relationships to brands and brand histories. Branding is an attempt to strategically “personify” products and to encapsulate a balance between different economic values: quality, utility, symbolic, and cultural worth. In this paper we argue that the relationship between the contemporary consumer and producer is mediated by and governed by a reflexive construction of brands. As such brands are best understood from an institutional perspective. The paper illustrates the institutional role of brands by using the example of the fashion industry. It is argued that in the fashion industry, a focus on consumer‐producer brand‐building and brand loyalty is central to the commodity and value chains built around products. We conclude by suggesting that economic geography has consistently undervalued brands as an area of study. By taking brands as a core product in industrial production rather than as an interesting aside for sociologists, historians, and cultural theorists, economic geography can better understand the institutions governing the economy. In particular, better understanding the institution of brands helps us better appreciate the dynamics systems within which commodities and commodity chains are formed.     

An “Orphan” Creative Industry: Exploring the Institutional Factors Constraining the Canadian Fashion Industry

In recent years, tier‐two fashion countries have been making gains in the global fashion industry, with hip young brands, buzz‐worthy fashion weeks and export‐oriented designers. The Canadian fashion industry, on the other hand, continues to fall behind and instead has experienced recent high‐profile closures of leading domestic fashion names. This paper explores why this is the case by considering a wide range of factors from a historical and institutional perspective. We argue that Canadian fashion is facing a number of systemic problems relating to wider institutional and policy weaknesses, rather than a lack of talent and know‐how within the entrepreneurs and businesses in the sector. While the fashion industry is indeed global, we argue that it is in fact national and local level factors—political, economic, and cultural—that structure and constrain the Canadian fashion industry for independent designers. Through exploring the experiences of this group of actors—entrepreneurial fashion designers—in this particular context, we not only learn about Canada as an economy but also what is needed in order to develop the fashion industry more broadly. We provide a framework for analysing the range of socio‐economic, historical, and political factors at the national level which affect the performance of the fashion sector and the operation of fashion designers as the entrepreneurial actors at the heart of the industry.     

Mapping Regional and Sectoral Characteristics of Knowledge‐Intensive Business Services: Evidence from the Province of Quebec (Canada)

ABSTRACT The study presents original evidence on the characteristic features and innovation activities of knowledge‐intensive business services (KIBS). Based on a wide‐scale survey of 1,124 KIBS firms in Quebec (Canada), we explore empirically the extent to which KIBS from various sectors and regions differ in their characteristics and their uses of innovation practices. The results from the sectoral analysis reveal that KIBS display different characteristic features and innovation behaviours across sectors, thus suggesting that inter‐sectoral differences are important when explaining innovation activities in KIBS. The comparison between KIBS in large, medium, central, and resource regions shows that the characteristic features and the innovativeness of KIBS are rather similar, and little or no significant statistical differences were found between the different regions in the province of Quebec. Thus, overall, the results of our study seem to suggest that a location does not tend to make a difference in respect to characteristic features and innovation performance of KIBS.     

Coffee frontiers in the Central Highlands of Vietnam: networks of connectivity

The objective of this paper is to provide an understanding of how the gap between the ‘global’ and the ‘local‐peripheral’ is bridged in the everyday life of the peasantry at a coffee pioneer front. The networks of connectivity between the spontaneous migrant‐peasants at the coffee pioneer front in the province of Dak Lak in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, and the global coffee market are explored. This set of linkages helps the peasantry to settle, despite the harsh conditions of life on the frontier. This is illustrated through a brief ethnographic account of the ‘peripheral’ characteristics of life on a coffee pioneer front. By borrowing analytical tools from actor‐network theory, the paper also illuminates the (actor) networks through which coffee finally reaches the export gate. This account suggests that global commodity production processes are often embedded in local dynamics, in this case, the political‐economy of the frontier. Further, it implies the need to transcend scales when inquiring about peasant‐market relationships in export agro‐commodity production.     

Design,National Imaginaries,and the Home Furnishings Commodity Chain

ABSTRACT This paper introduces the concept of national imaginaries as a means of foregrounding the continuing influence of ideas about the nation on understandings of commodity production and circulation. National imaginaries are of crucial importance to the home furnishings commodity network, flowing across sites of consumption, retailing, design, and production. Drawing upon the findings of a larger cross‐national research project, the paper discusses three cases in which the characterisation of distinctive national design identities was particularly prominent. These include the representation of designers in the UK and Canada as “national heroes,” and the tendency to measure British and Canadian design against a third national imaginary: that of Italy. A final case considers discursive constructions of national economic trajectories—of “success” or “failure”—within accounts of the British and Canadian furniture industries. It is argued that future work on the differentiating advantages, which may accrue to creative or cultural industries in particular localities, also should be attentive to the ways in which the place of the nation is used to construct imaginative geographies.     

Multifunctionality and agrarian transition in alternative agro‐food production in the global South: The case of organic shrimp certification in the Mekong Delta,Vietnam

Processes of globalisation in the conventional food provision system have had widespread negative impacts on small‐scale farmers. Yet, alternative food networks, which are characterised by more sustainable production/consumption practices and fairer trade relations, have increasingly been ‘going global’ and, in the process, have been integrating small‐scale farms in the South. One such high‐value export‐led commodity is certified organic shrimp. International third‐party certification schemes are becoming popular as a tool to verify the intangible attributes of such commodities. Using concepts of multifunctionality and agrarian change, this paper examines the implications of introducing an international environmental certification programme to a site where the ‘peasantry’ has been preserved and has limited integration in the global agro‐food system. Drawing on a case study that examines the first certified organic shrimp production project in Vietnam, this paper concludes that the current movement towards post‐productivism in the global North has potential to keep local farming practices in the global South by justifying the value of peasant‐like production methods through international certification. As a result, the development path of agrarian transition might be reshaped into a form not necessarily pursuing industrialisation. This leads to the new interpretation of pre‐ and post‐productivism beyond the North and South divide.     

Redefining “Offshore” in Latin America

Offshoring and outsourcing are two terms—often used interchangeably—that comprise an essential element of the modern post‐industrial global economy. Analysis of this phenomenon in the United States is often framed in the light of job loss and economic decline relating to the manufacturing or low‐end services sectors, but this paper will revisit the traditional offshore industry—that of offshore finance and offshore financial centers (OFCs) and compare OFC offshoring with traditional offshoring in Latin America. This paper argues that some similarities are evident when comparing OFC offshoring with traditional offshoring but many differences exist. Using the framework or “lens” of politics certain OFC offshoring issues and tensions with the onshore world relating to unfair tax competition, money laundering, sovereignty, secrecy, regulation, trust, and reputation are analyzed and are shown to be more onerous, tense and different from those occurring in the mainstream offshoring/outsourcing world. In addition, using the “lens” of cyberspace and e‐commerce, and a case study of the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas, this paper argues that the creation of an electronic infrastructure in the OFC offshoring world is as necessary as in the onshore world, but the actors and institutions creating and promoting such infrastructures are different. Future work could pursue more reputable and comparative data gathering to further more rigorous statistical modeling of the relationships both between OFCs as they compete for offshore capital, and between offshore and onshore as the onshore world seeks to further lift the veil of offshore financial opacity, particularly related to issues of money laundering.     

Acquired Thermo‐Tolerance and Trans‐Generational Heat Stress Response at Flowering in Rice

In rice, pre‐exposure to sublethal treatment followed by harsh lethal treatment is known to improve tolerance of different abiotic stresses at the vegetative stage within and across generations. Our major aim was to test the phenomenon of thermo‐tolerance at flowering across (trans)‐generations and within generation using rice cultivars contrasting for heat stress tolerance at flowering. To test trans‐generational response, plants were exposed to higher temperature at flowering stage and seeds obtained from previous generations were exposed to heat stress during flowering, which recorded significantly lower fertility when exposed to the same degree of stress in their subsequent generations. A pre‐acclimation to moderately high acclimating temperatures imposed over three different durations during the vegetative and initial reproductive stage showed positive response in the tolerant N22, particularly under severe heat stress (40 °C). This finding indicates the possibility of acquiring ameliorative thermo‐tolerant mechanisms at anthesis, restricted to tolerant genetic backgrounds to combat subsequent harsh conditions within the same generation. However, trans‐generational memory was ineffective in mitigating spikelet sterility losses in both tolerant and susceptible backgrounds. Rice is extremely sensitive to heat stress during flowering; hence, similar exercise across other crops of interest needs to be carried out before generalizing conclusions.     

Reflections on the “Old” Economy, “New” Economy,and Services

ABSTRACT Economic competitiveness now has less to do with new materials than with new ways of producing, utilizing, and combining diverse knowledges. It is branded as symptomatic of a “new” economy and is often juxtaposed against the “old” economy. As accelerating technological change has greatly increased the volume and quality of the information available to organizations, to firms, and to individual employees, it is asserted that the economy has become more “new” than “old.” But this is predicated on the assumption that there is a “new” economy and that it is somehow distinguishable from the “old.” This paper explores the basis for this dichotomy and whether it really adds anything to understanding contemporary economies and their ongoing development. It will be argued that it is more useful and constructive to examine the economy through a lens dominated by service industries that are now the key drivers of change (innovation, competition, employment) and development. The paper is concluded with a discussion of some items that could usefully be part of an agenda for further research by economic geographers on the evolving spatial and structural attributes of service work and organizations and their impact on cities or regions at different scales of analysis.     

Reproductive compatibility studies between wild and cultivated strawberries (Fragaria × ananassa) to obtain “bridge species” for breeding programmes

The Fragaria genus has become relevant due to worldwide economic importance of the octoploid hybrid F. × ananassa. Interspecific hybridizations are widely employed in breeding programmes to introduce useful characteristics from wild species to cultivated varieties, although many reproductive barriers prevent gene flow between species. Hybrid genotypes that can act as a bridge between related wild species and cultivated strawberry could be useful to overcome those barriers. The aim of this work was to obtain interspecific hybrids of Fragaria and to analyse possible reproductive barriers. In the Banco de Germoplasma de Frutilla‐UNT, crossings were carried out among wild species of Fragaria with different ploidy levels and cultivated strawberry. To confirm hybrid condition of genotypes obtained, histological techniques and microsatellite markers were used. When wild species were crossed with cultivated strawberry in both directions, there was low production of achenes, while in crosses between wild species of Fragaria genus, achene production was very high. The percentage of germination of achenes was high when crossed species had the same ploidy level, and very low or null when they presented different ploidy levels. Although pre‐zygotic incompatibility associated to the degree of domestication and postzygotic barriers related to different ploidy levels of the progenitors were detected, new hybrid genotypes of Fragaria were obtained. These new hybrids could be used as “bridge species” in breeding programmes, since preliminary results showed no incompatibility barriers when they were crossed with Duchesnea indica.     

Integrated “omics” approaches to sustain global productivity of major grain legumes under heat stress

Grain legumes serve as key sources of dietary protein to the global human population. Consequence of high‐temperature (HT) stress is increasingly evident as drastically lost production of different crops including grain legumes worldwide, thus putting the global food security under great threat. In a changing climate scenario, cool season‐adapted grain legumes frequently encounter heat stress (HS) during their reproductive phase, thus witnessing serious yield losses. To combat the emerging challenges of HT stress, an integrated approach demanding collaborative efforts from various disciplines of plant science should be in place. This review summarizes major impacts of HT stress on grain legume, and captures the relevance of crop genetic resources to HS tolerance in these crops. Measurement of physiological traits assumes key place in view of ever‐increasing precision of next‐generation phenotyping assays. We also discuss the significance of genetic inheritance and QTL discovery and evolving “omics” science for developing HS tolerance grain legume crops.     

The Recession and the New Economy of the West: The Familiar Boom and Bust Cycle?

The U.S. West has gone through many periods of economic boom and bust, most of which were associated with rapid rises and declines in commodity markets. The recent structural shift toward a primarily service‐based economy begs the question of whether the driving forces behind the cycles of boom and bust also may be shifting away from commodities toward people and their resources. This paper explores several factors that contributed to growth in the 1990s and 2000s: asking whether these factors created any advantages or disadvantages during the most recent recession and whether the shift away from commodity production to a knowledge‐ and human capital‐intensive economy has implications for how local areas experience the boom–bust cycle.     

Best Practices in Twenty‐First‐Century Rural Development and Policy

The combination of less than perfectly mobile resources (human and other), pervasive urbanization trends with potentially significant (positive and negative) externalities, and an environment of fiscal restraint suggests the need for more effective rural development and policy. In contrast to historical sectoral or fad‐based policies, place‐based rural development programs and policies focus on rural populations in the context of a realistic assessment of the opportunities and constraints they face. Among the most promising opportunities are 1) improving integration (possibly through connective infrastructure) with urban economies in order to access agglomeration economies, 2) enhancing rural amenities, and 3) increasing entrepreneurial capacity.     

Productive transformations and bilateralism in the semi‐periphery: A comparative political economy of the dairy complexes of New Zealand and Chile

Abstract: This paper examines the evolution of the dairy complexes of New Zealand and Chile in the context of increasing bilateral interaction between the two countries, and their recent signing of a ‘Trans‐Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership’ (TPSEP) free‐trade agreement. The two economies can be said to occupy semi‐peripheral positions in global markets and have, through the twentieth and into the twenty‐first century, increasingly competed for market share in a range of primary product (particularly agricultural)‐based export markets. Similar sets of historical processes, although variably timed, have shaped the roles of New Zealand and Chile respectively as resource peripheries, and the extent to which the two countries can collaborate for mutual benefit and transcend these roles is uncertain. In taking a sectoral approach this paper questions the compatibility of the two dairy complexes in the context of the TPSEP, and recommends further sectoral and localised studies in order to better appraise the model of ‘co‐opetition’ promoted through the agreement.     

Genome‐wide association mapping and candidate gene analysis for saturated fatty acid content in soybean seed

Saturated fatty acids (FA), an important component of soybean oil, plays a crucial role in the nutritional value of soybean oil through different concentration and relative proportions. In this study, an association population of 185 diverse soybean accessions was used to identify quantitative trait nucleotide (QTN) and scan candidate genes via genome‐wide association analysis (GWAS), which was based on high throughout single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) developed via the Specific Locus Amplified Fragment Sequencing (SLAF‐seq) approach. A total of 33,149 SNPs were identified with minor allele frequencies (MAF) >4%, which covered 97% of the soybean whole genome. For the two saturated FA concentration, including palmitic acid (PA) and stearic acid (SA), up to 65 SNPs were verified via GWAS. Among them, 35 and 16 SNPs loci were the novel loci for PA and SA, respectively. There were other six loci for PA and eight loci for SA overlapped or located in the linked genomic regions reported by the previous study. Furthermore, many loci were repeated in more than two environments, and four pair of pleiotropic loci (PA‐3‐2 and SA‐3‐2, PA‐11‐2 and SA‐11‐1, PA‐12‐2 and SA‐12‐1, and PA‐17‐1 and SA‐17‐2) had similar genomic regions, which might control both PA and SA simultaneously. A total of 49 genes, which could participate in lipid biosynthesis pathway or hormone metabolism, were identified as the potential candidate genes associated with saturated FA. The identified loci with beneficial alleles and the candidate genes would be valuable for studying the molecular mechanisms of saturated FA and further for improving nutritional value of soybean oil.     

Direct and Interactive Effects of Brokerage Roles on Innovation in Clustered Firms

Social network analysis has generated a great number of research findings in the organizational and management literature, in which the so‐called territorial clusters have often been represented through the network metaphor. However, while scholars primarily examine the network structure and the internal heterogeneity, we have specifically analyzed the diverse types or roles of informational brokers which firms can perform. We also posit that innovation generated by these firms is moderated by their own capabilities and, more particularly, we analyze how innovation is affected by brokerage roles and the moderating effect of R&D in the Spanish ceramic tile cluster. Our results show that different brokerage roles played by clustered firms have different implications in terms of innovation. Another relevant and related result refers to the interactive effect of brokerage roles and absorptive capacity, which becomes more or less significant depending on the role being played in each case.     

Drought Tolerance and Water Use of Cereal Crops: A Focus on Sorghum as a Food Security Crop in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) faces twin challenges of water stress and food insecurity – challenges that are already pressing and are projected to grow. Sub‐Saharan Africa comprises 43 % arid and semi‐arid area, which is projected to increase due to climate change. Small‐scale, rainfed agriculture is the main livelihood source in arid and semi‐arid areas of SSA. Because rainfed agriculture constitutes more than 95 % of agricultural land use, water scarcity is a major limitation to production. Crop production, specifically staple cereal crop production, will have to adapt to water scarcity and improved water productivity (output per water input) to meet food requirements. We propose inclusion and promotion of drought‐tolerant cereal crops in arid and semi‐arid agro‐ecological zones of SSA where water scarcity is a major limitation to cereal production. Sorghum uniquely fits production in such regions, due to high and stable water‐use efficiency, drought and heat tolerance, high germplasm variability, comparative nutritional value and existing food value chain in SSA. However, sorghum is socio‐economically and geographically underutilized in parts of SSA. Sorghum inclusion and/or promotion in arid and semi‐arid areas of SSA, especially among subsistence farmers, will improve water productivity and food security.     

“Weakness” as “Strength” in the Scottish Life Sciences: The Institutional Grounding of Knowledge‐based Commodity Chains in a Less‐favoured Region

Despite all the talk of knowledge‐driven, knowledge‐based, and learning economies, it is not always clear or self‐evident whether all countries, let alone regions, will share the spoils of emerging technological trends and changes. In particular, less‐favoured regions (LFRs) like Scotland face a number of difficulties as a consequence of this emerging knowledge‐based economy (KBE) and the strategies necessary to overcome their existing uneven position in order to adapt to new global economic imperatives. More specifically, the KBE agenda invokes strategies that do not adequately address the existing uneven development of LFRs in relation to “growth” regions that have the institutional infrastructure and arrangements necessary to attract and embed new forms of employment, new knowledge capacities, and new industrial sectors. However, this article will explore the institutional grounding of the life sciences sector in Scotland in order to consider how particular institutional arrangements that may appear disadvantageous can also lead to new, potentially advantageous arrangements that can help LFRs to avoid continuing economic stagnation or decline.     

Development prospects in Eastern Indonesia: Learning from Oelua's diverse economy

This paper explores the effects of different representations of informal economies in Third World settings. Both the neoclassical and political economy approaches have represented the informal economy as a transient entity, and the non‐capitalist practices it comprises as being remnant economic forms, or as already capitalist. Mainstream development discourse (that reflects the neoliberal paradigm) continues to ignore the value and potential of non‐capitalist practices and to represent them as inconsequential to development outcomes. Meanwhile contemporary livelihood studies across the social sciences have documented the continuing vibrancy of different and hybrid economic forms in the Asia Pacific. In this paper, I use a diverse‐economies approach to explore the complexities of the village economy of Oelua in Rote, in the so‐called lagging region of Eastern Indonesia. Drawing on anti‐essentialist Marxist theory in economic geography, I describe the multiple, locally specific and coexisting practices that comprise Oelua's diverse economy, which include distributions of surplus labour to promote social and economic well‐being. I argue that recognising informal village economies as an important development resource could begin a process of building diverse development trajectories in Eastern Indonesia, complementing mainstream development proposals to attract foreign direct investment, shore up development assistance and source out‐migration.     

Property rights for social inclusion: Migrant strategies for securing land and livelihoods in Papua New Guinea

This paper examines the broad range of informal land transactions and arrangements migrants are entering into with customary landowners to gain access to customary land for export cash cropping in the oil palm belt of West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Whilst these arrangements can provide migrants with relatively secure access to land, there are instances of migrants losing their land rights. Typically, the land tenure arrangements of migrants with more secure access to land are within a framework of property rights for social inclusion whereby customary landowners’ inalienable rights to land are preserved and the ‘outsider’ becomes an ‘insider’ with ongoing use rights to the land. Through socially embedding land transactions in place‐based practices of non‐market exchange, identities of difference are eroded as migrants assume identities as part of their host groups. This adaptability of customary land tenure and its capacity to accommodate large migration in‐flows and expanding commodity production undermines the argument common amongst proponents of land reform that customary tenure is static and inflexible. Before such claims are heeded, there must be more detailed empirical investigations of the diverse range of land tenure regimes operating in areas of the country experiencing high rates of immigration.