DFG Emmy Noether Junior Research Group: Local labor struggles in global value chains

Project Summary

The DFG Emmy Noether Junior Research Group, led by Dr. Caroline Hambloch, investigates how smallholders and workers in the Global South navigate their often unequal integration into agricultural global value chains (GVCs). Focusing on the Philippines, Colombia, and Malawi, the project examines how different forms of value creation and capture influence smallholder and labor control, agency, and opportunities for more equitable outcomes. Combining labor regime analysis, labor agency, and agrarian political economy, the project examines the dynamic interplay between firm control and the agency of smallholders and workers across different contexts and scales. Adopting an emancipatory lens, it centers on how subordinate GVC actors formally and informally contest and reshape power relations within GVCs. The project also analyzes key mediating factors, such as land control and access, modes of coordination, and standards and certification to identify pathways toward empowerment in agricultural GVCs.