China and Globalization in the Amazon: Workers, Expatriates and the Chinese Production Model

China and Globalization in the Amazon examines Chinese investment in the Global South, with particular attention to industrial activity in Latin America. Based on ethnographic work conducted in several Chinese factories in the Amazon region of Brazil, whether private, partially private or state-owned, it explores the impact of these factories on the lives of workers, specifically on wages, laws and labour benefits, as well as the relationship between management and workers. Drawing on interviews with Brazilian workers, expatriate Chinese workers, union leaders and factory managers, the author identifies a Chinese production model and sheds light on the implementation of externally defined work regimes that showed little engagement with the workforce in the region, together with practices that resulted in a technical or bureaucratic relationship with the worker, and the emergence of lower wages than the local average, as well as few concessions on labour benefits. A study of Chinese globalisation and industrial expansion in the developing world, and the implications of the Chinese management model for workers - and their reactions - this volume will be of interest to scholars of the sociology of work and organisations, globalisation, development studies and politics.