University of Wollongong Research Online Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities 2016 Resource-sensitive global production networks: reconfigured geographies of timber and acoustic guitar manufacturing Christopher R. Gibson University of Wollongong,
[email protected] Andrew T. Warren University of Wollongong,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers Part of the Education Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Gibson, Christopher R. and Warren, Andrew T., "Resource-sensitive global production networks: reconfigured geographies of timber and acoustic guitar manufacturing" (2016). Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers. 2538. https://ro.uow.edu.au/sspapers/2538 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library:
[email protected] Resource-sensitive global production networks: reconfigured geographies of timber and acoustic guitar manufacturing Abstract This article examines how resource materiality, scarcity, and evolving international environmental regulation shape global production networks (GPNs). Nature-facing elements, including resource scarcity and environmental regulation, have seldom featured in GPN analysis. So, too, GPN analysis emphasizes spatial relations between network actors over temporal change. We extend GPN theorization through a temporal analysis of industrial change, connecting manufacturing to upstream resource materialities and shifting regulation, and to downstream consumers increasingly concerned with provenance and material stewardship. To illustrate, we document a resource-sensitive GPN-acoustic guitar manufacturing-where scarcity of select raw materials (tonewoods) with material qualities of resonance, strength, and beauty, as well as tighter regulation, has spawned shifting economic geographies of new actors who influence the whole GPN.