This paper seeks to advance the multilevel approach to studying childhood obesity by focusing on the "macro" level of corporations in the global economy. We use a global value chains (GVC) framework to explain how the structure of food and agricultural value chains, with an emphasis on the...

Global value chains (GVCs) offer important opportunities for women worldwide to earn a living – garments, tourism, mobile phones and commercial horticulture are good examples. Women can play a vital role in supporting value chain upgrading – as workers, farmers, producers and consumers. Yet...

Capturing the Gains conducted research in Kampala and Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda. Researchers outlined the tourism global production network for Uganda and addressed whether economic upgrading occurred for tourism service providers and whether social upgrading followed for workers and...

In this paper I address how the ideology of Costa Rican exceptionalism and whiteness has maintained racial inequality with the growth of global tourism. Whereas scholars of whiteness in Latin America typically ignore how the ideology has supported racial inequality in structural forms, I explore...

In this article, I consider the position of gender and race in the tourism global production network in Kenya. To address a gap in scholarship on global production networks, I explore the racial and gender characteristics evident in functionally upgraded national tour operators and socially...

A challenge associated with the nutrition transition in developing countries (i.e., simultaneous presence of over-nutrition and under-nutrition, both being most prevalent in the poorest population segments) is the integration of their markets into the global economy. This integration determined...

This article examines the structure and health implications of two industries, chicken and tomatoes, that play prominent roles in US food and agricultural competitiveness. Both industries have become more concentrated over time, with powerful “lead firms” driving geographical, technological,...

Capturing the Gains seeks to understand the structure of the tourism global production network (GPN) in order to uncover avenues where firms and workers in poor countries can economically and socially upgrade. This briefing note highlights the stages of the tourism GPN, avenues of economic...

This paper presents preliminary field research findings on tourism global production networks (GPNs) in Kenya and Uganda. It addresses the questions of whether economic upgrading in the tourism global production network leads to social upgrading for workers, small producers and community members...

Wal-Mart has been both praised and pilloried as a template for twenty-first century capitalism. Therein lies the challenge in analyzing the world's largest retailer. We examine the sociological impact of Wal-Mart in terms of four themes: its business model and organizational structure, the dual...