Desert capitalism
Subtitle: maquiladoras in North America's western industrial corridor
By: Kathryn Kopinak.
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Tucson
Language: eng
Number of pages: 232
Subjects: Offshore assembly industry -- Mexico.; Offshore assembly industry -- Employees -- Mexico.; Mexico -- Social conditions -- 1970-
Description: Sociologist Kathryn Kopinak here examines the maquiladora industry in Nogales, Sonora, and explores various questions concerning how it is changing with NAFTA and other attempts at regional integration. Focusing on the auto-parts industry, Kopinak observes that few maquiladoras have taken steps toward more sophisticated technology and innovative labor practices anticipated by the "second wave" hypothesis of modernization.

She argues instead that the apparent advances have not benefited the overwhelming majority of Mexican employees by increasing their wages or involving them in the workplace. Women workers in particular are segmented at the bottom of the job ladder. Kopinak provides information on facilities in both Nogales and the town of Imuris to offer a balanced perspective on border and inland maquiladoras.

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Desert Capitalism draws on interviews with workers about their daily lives in both their home and adopted communities and on interviews with Mexican and U.S. plant managers. Community surveys, newspaper advertisements, and government records are other important sources of data. Kopinak reviews and synthesizes literature published only in Spanish and utilizes creative quantitative statistical techniques.

The book thus marks a significant study of people's lives that seeks to contribute to the understanding of ongoing continental economic reorganization, and it holds important lessons for scholars of economics, anthropology, political science, history, sociology, women's studies, and regional planning.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [213]-226) and index.
Table of contents: title: Thirty years of Mexican maquiladoras; title: Dualism or heterogeneity in maquiladoras; title: Implications of economic restructuring for regional development; title: NAFTA's effect on the Western industrial corridor; title: The Nogales, Sonora, area as a research site; title: Why study transport-equipment maquiladoras?; title: Constructing the Nogales labor market in the eighties; title: Managers' perceptions of labor shortage; title: Crisis as myth; title: The Nogales labor market; title: The search for maquiladora labor; title: Is the labor market a free market?; title: Job incentives as indicators of social and economic disadvantage; title: Gender segmentation in the labor market; title: On the home front : workers, households, and community; title: Nogales-area maquila workers : a demographic profile; title: Workers at home; title: Migration and maquiladoras; title: Housing and living conditions; title: Technology and the organization of work; title: The cost-ineffectiveness of advanced technology; title: Dual technology; title: De-skilling or downward job classification?; title: Worker's acquisition of "skilled" jobs through specialization; title: The importance of extended work hours; title: Workers' reactions to wages and working conditions; title: How the Mexican government has depressed wages; title: Working smarter, working longer, or collection coupons?; title: Worker benefits as indirect wages; title: Ways to increase worker satisfaction; title: Unions' failure to represent Nogales-area maquila workers; title: Turnover; title: Heterogeneous maquila development and corridor integration in crisis; title: The advance of desert capitalism; title: The immediate effects of NAFTA and the 1994-95 crisis.