Doctoral Dissertation Research: Co-Producing Innovation: The Politics of Knowledge Production and Diffusion in Mexico

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation research, supported by the Science, Technology, and Society program at NSF, will explore the dynamics of technology development and diffusion in labor-intensive industries in developing countries. It specifically seeks to address why, in the context of globally integrated economies, some industries in the developing world end up on the high road of upgraded production while others are forced down the low road of compromised wages and labor conditions. Why are some more successful at generating and diffusing productive ideas and technologies than others? How can governments affect innovation and labor conditions in these industries? This comparative study will examine three small, labor-intensive industries in the Mexican state of Michoacán that had varied responses to economic integration (ceramics, avocado growing, and furniture). The project seeks to test the notion that innovations in these small, labor-intensive industries are best co-produced by responsive, committed government agents and producers with strong social and professional ties to each other, as well as to explore the social and political underpinnings of these commitments in a single Mexican state. In so doing, this research expands our understanding of the broader conditions under which productive knowledge is disseminated across communities and organizations. Interviews with producers and government agents as well as small-scale producer surveys will provide both qualitative and quantitative data for the study. Gaps exist in social scientific understanding of how small producers may adapt to new market conditions through innovation. These questions are of concrete relevance not only to scholars but to development agencies and especially to communities in poor and medium-income countries that face the prospect of declining quality of jobs and working conditions in their industries. Given the relative ease with which some innovations may be made in these industries and that many potentially viable technologies and ideas are freely available, understanding how they are diffused and adopted by producers is particularly important. The research has broad impact by empirically investigating how clusters of producers in the developing world may benefit from incorporation into the global economy.