The Transfer of Core-Based Hazardous Production Processes to the Export Processing Zones of the Periphery: The Maquiladora Centers of Northern Mexico

Abstract

Transnational corporations appropriate 'carrying capacity" for the core by transferring the core's hazardous products, production processes, and wastes to the peripheral countries of the world-system. An increasingly important form of this reproduction process is the transfer of core-based hazardous industries to export processing zones (EPZs) locatedin a number of peripheral countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. A specific case is examined in this paper: the transfer of hazardous industries to the maquiladora centers located on the Mexican side of the Mexico-U.S. border. Maquiladoras provide an excellent case for examining what is known about the causes, adverse consequences, and political responses associated with the transfer of core-based hazardous production processes to the EPZs of the periphery.

Chocolate and The Consumption of Forests: A Cross-National Examination of Ecologically Unequal Exchange in Cocoa Exports

“…Previous cross-national research using the world-systems frame and applying the concept of ecologically unequal exchange yields insight on the impact that specializing in export of primary commodities has on a variety of ecological outcomes, such as biodiversity loss of mammals and birds (Shandra et al 2009b), the environmental footprints of nations (Jorgenson and Burns 2007), climate change (Roberts and Parks 2007), organic water pollution (Shandra et al 2009c), the use of environmental space (Frey 2003;Rice 2007), and deforestation (Austin 2010a(Austin , 2010bJorgenson 2004Jorgenson , 2006Jorgenson et al 2010).…”

“…Bunker and Ciccantell 2005;Frey 2003;Rice 2008). Countries closer to the core are able to shift a majority of the environmental costs of consumption and waste generation to more peripheral countries, leading to increased environmental degradation in poor nations relative to the core (e.g., Jorgenson 2016;Rice 2008).…”

“…Bunker argued that insufficient attention was placed on the environmental inequalities inherent in the capitalist world-system created and maintained through unequal exchange relationships. Unequal exchanges do not just focus on environmental degradation such as deforestation, but also encompass the unequal use of natural resources, over-utilization of environmental space, and the displacement of environmental risks to poor nations (Frey 2003;Jorgensen 2016;Rice 2008).…”

The Paradoxical Relationship between Renewable Energy and Economic Growth: A Cross-National Panel Study, 1990-2013

“…To control for a country's integration into the global economy, international trade (imports and exports) as a percentage of GDP was included. International trade has been demonstrated to have a positive influence on CO2 emissions (Dietz, Rosa, and York 2010;Frey 2003;Roberts and Park 2007). Another key driver, total population, was included in the model as well (Dietz, Rosa, and York 2007;Rosa, York, Dietz 2004;York, Rosa, and Dietz 2003).…”

The Political Economy of the Water Footprint: A Cross-National Analysis of Ecologically Unequal Exchange

“…This externalization of environmental costs, also called environmental load displacement [40], allows for consumption levels in high-income countries to increase without significantly affecting their intra-national environmental burdens. Instead, this problem is passed on to developing nations where much of the extraction and waste dumping occurs [42][43][44][45]. This is particularly problematic because the earth has a set of biophysical limits which are increasingly being disrupted throughout the world [46].…”