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Join us for this Sussex Development Lecture, with guest speaker Professor Benjamin Selwyn, who will discuss his new book, co-authored with Christin Bernhold, which challenges this mainstream view by introducing the concept of Capitalist Value Chains (CVCs).

Benjamin Selwyn will discuss how CVCs generate highly exploitative jobs, deepen poverty, stunt human development, and damage the environment. He shows how the ‘upgrading as development’ narrative, at the core of mainstream GVC research, represents a fallacy of composition. Rather than waiting for the promised benefits of “upgrading,” he highlights how workers’ collective action, within specific historical and geographic contexts, can improve pay and conditions. The talk also invites us to imagine a world beyond these capitalist relations of exploitation.

The Sussex Development Lecture series is an opportunity to hear from leading global thinkers on development. It is jointly run by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), the School of Global Studies, the Science Policy and Research Unit (SPRU) and the Centre for International Education (CIE), based at the University of Sussex.

Benjamin Selwyn, Professor of International Relations and International Development, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex. The lecture will be Chaired by Anabel Marin, Research Fellow, IDS.

Register for the event at Global Value Chains or Capitalist Value Chains? Connecting worker exploitation, environmental destruction and geopolitical conflict - Institute of Development Studies

This event will take place in the IDS convening space on the 1st floor of the IDS Building. If you need to use a lift then press floor 1A. For full information on the IDS building and how to get there, visit the accessibility information page. If you have any accessibility issues then contact events@ids.ac.uk

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