Disciplining Capital: export grape production, the state and class dynamics in northeast Brazil

The globalisation of food and agriculture over the past three decades has entailed the emergence of fresh fruit and vegetable production in new global regions, and the concentration and centralisation of retailer capital and its augmented power vis-à-vis suppliers. Much contemporary literature often assumes (or asserts) that globalisation reduces states' and labour's capacity to bargain with and win concessions from increasingly mobile capital. It is therefore important for empirical studies to investigate the nature of state–capital–labour relations under contemporary globalisation. This article does so by focusing on the emergence, expansion and integration into global retail chains of the São Francisco valley grape branch in northeast Brazil. It investigates the following interconnected processes: the state's role in facilitating and promoting the emergence of the grape branch and in regulating the new labour force; the changing nature of the labour process and workers' bargaining power; and firm strategies of recruiting and retaining workers.