Informality and Flexible Specialization
Apprenticeships and Knowledge Spillovers in an Indian Silk Weaving Cluster
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3883941 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Amit Basole (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 157-187 |
| Publication date | 2016-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Development and Change (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0012-155X • E-ISSN: 1467-7660 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/dech.12216 |
| OpenAlex | W2286688241 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 34 |
This article draws on quantitative and qualitative data from the Banaras (Varanasi) silk weaving cluster in North India to show how informal institutions based on family and community interact with the relations of production to enable flexible specialization while reproducing or accentuating inequality. The family-based apprenticeship system produces a supply of highly skilled workers but contributes to labour surplus by lowering the costs of entry and making exit difficult. Surplus labour ensures that productivity gains resulting from technical improvements do not accrue to weavers as higher wages. A community of artisans called thenaqsheband(designers) produces fabric patterns that are central to the industry's market. Geographical clustering results in quick diffusion of these designs and free imitation is the key to innovation. But this entails hyper-competition, conservative changes, a culture of secrecy and quickly dissipating monopoly rents. The Banaras case enables us to understand how collective efficiencies as well as inefficiencies are created by the same institutions
Apprenticeship · Business · Business cluster · Cluster (spacecraft) · Competition (biology) · Economic growth · Economic rent · Economics · Imitation · Industrial organization · Labour economics · Market economy · Monopoly · Productivity · Weaving · Computer Science · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Engineering · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Innovation and Socioeconomic Development
Innovation in Indian Handloom Weaving
Rethinking Education and Livelihoods in India
Understanding the Firm in the Informal Economy
The Analog City
Skills for Work and the Work of Skills
Farming is charming
Innovations, informality, and the global south
Timepass’ and ‘setting’
Factors and remedies for productivity and efficiency among small-scale informal enterprises
Untraded inter-dependencies as auxiliary production factors for informal artisans in urban industrial clusters
Industrial districts and local economic regeneration
The second industrial divide
Small Town Capitalism in Western India
Identity Economics
Footloose Labour
Fraternal Capital
The Informal Economy
Notes from small industry clusters
Economic Clusters or Cultural Commons
From the Green Revolution to Industrial Dispersal
Clustering and Industrialization
Of networks and markets
Weaving Hierarchies
The Artisans of Banaras
Rescue and Redemption
Precarious production
Ethnohistories behind local and global bazaars
Just like a family? Recalling the relations of production in the textile industries of Surat and Bhiwandi, 1940-60
Artisan Cloth-Producers and the Emergence of Powerloom Manufacture in Western India 1920-1950
Historical Alternatives to Mass Production
Manufacturing Disorder
Artisan labour in the Agra footwear industry
Embroidering Lives
Situated Learning
Working Through Tradition
From Village Artisans to Industrial Clusters
| Unique citing works | 10 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,25 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |