Stadt- und Regionalforschung

Regina Vidosa

With the Fordist production regime crisis the Trans nationalization of the regulatory and technical relations in central and peripheral countries started (see Arrighi, 1997; Arceo, 2009; Veltz, 1996). The automotive industry is presented as a paradigmatic case of this phenomenon. In this, the pro-duction process is fragmented, as the parent companies; in an effort to cut costs, move their more labor intensive activities to the periphery and go on to control their geographically dispersed pro-duction processes (Arceo, 2009). Furthermore, there are changes in production technical relation-ships. This process consolidates new flexible production models, such as the Toyotism, in which small series of differentiated products are elaborated under the idea of minimum factory (stock reduction, labor and space), a just-in-time logic of provisioning, assembly flexible to changes in the market and polyvalent work capable of making decisions in production (Coriat, 1992). This scheme is disadvantageous for peripheral countries as it does not allow joint industrial strategies that transcend assembly stages, with low technology and low added value (Minian, 2009: 3). In this context, we propose an analysis of the implications of the global logics in the territory, recovering not only the specifics of the locale and / or local production processes, but also the historical-structural conditions that give specificity to the actors of different social formations preventing the spread of political and economic recipes.