Globalization and the Geographies of Consumption: A Case Study of the Clothes and Footwear sector.

Methodology of Data collection

In order to be able to find out the nature and geographies of consumption in the world with particular reference to Britain, then a series of tests and studies must be carried out in the form of field work.  This will be performed by using two separate places for investigation into where clothes and footwear are produced in the world. These products are consumed by the British people and therefore we can have an understanding of the patterns of consumption. These two places are Loughborough, which is a large town with a limited range of shopping amenities and a steady rate of consumer consumption, and Nottingham, a large city with a large range of shopping amenities and a high rate of consumer consumption. The aim will to be to record around 60 separate but similar items of clothing at each destination and then to make a comparison between the two places, Loughborough and Nottingham. A range of shops and clothing types will be examined so that we are able to gain a full picture as to what patterns there may be between the production and consumption of various products. This data will then be represented in the form of tables and graphs in order to show the nature of the production of clothes and footwear that are located within Britain today.

Maps and tables of Results

Frequency table of Purchases

Interpretations of Results

From the data that has been collected from the two shopping centres of Loughborough and Nottingham various patterns can be seen. First off all it is clear that China were by far and away the leading producer of clothes in Britain with 46 out of the 215 items of clothing and footwear studied being from their country. The closest country to that total was Indonesia with 18 out of 215 items originating there. It is also clear to see from the results that there are very few countries that have produced clothes from all of the 4 groupings that were studied (A-D). Only China, India, Italy, Turkey, Britain and Vietnam had items from each of the categories. This shows that very few countries in the world have a diverse range of production instead limiting themselves to 1 or 2 specialist fields. This might be due to lack of resources and money within these countries or a specific focus on one niche market. A lot of the countries produced very few items of clothing and footwear which suggests that there is not the resources available to them to produce a lot of stock in any of the markets which limits their output. Another pattern that has emerged is the dominance of the Asian countries above everybody else in the market. In fact between them they account for over half of the 215 items of clothing that were recorded in the data collection.

The dominance of China in the producer market is due to a number of factors. First of all they are an ever developing country which has the resources to provide for many items of clothing and indeed other commodity lines such as electrical goods and advanced technology. Also there is an enormous population base within China which allows them to produce goods and services at an increased rate, an advantage very few countries have. From results that were collected in the 1980s it can be seen that there is a difference between the level of production from 15 or so years ago and the results today. As can be seen from the source “Uneven Development and the Textiles Clothing Industry” (Elson 1994 pp 189-210) a number of countries were not high in the production market. For instance Indonesia, which is now ranked second in the group of findings from the primary research, was not even in the list of the top 15 countries in the late 1980s which shows a massive leap in production.

Conclusions

When conducting research into the geographies of the production and consumer markets it is important to realise that not all results are going to be consistent. The global economy is changing by the minute and the example of Indonesia shows this fact. In the world of production and consumption there will tend to be the same countries and continents that lead the field with Asia and particularly the introduction of the Asian Tigers being a formidable force in producing certain goods. This is evident not only in the world of clothing and footwear but in the developing hi-tech world we are living in today. The production of computers and cars and new exciting innovations is due to this foundation of exporting goods to more affluent areas of the world and having a high amount of production. For this reason these countries are developing into more important and wealthy countries and with money brings power and power brings influence.

Britain as a country does not tend to produce as much as it consumes. Therefore its imports are larger than its exports. This can be seen in the data collected as out of 215 items of clothing and footwear researched in two different shopping centres only 14 were produced in the country itself. This shows that Britain has a high percentage of imports in the clothing and footwear category and also shows the dominance of the developing countries in the clothing and footwear production industry.

However it is important to realise that the data collected was limited. Although a range of items were selected randomly it might be the case that these results were not the norm. Also there may be different types of clothing and shops in other areas of the country away from the East Midlands so there may be a different line of production and therefore a possible different country of production.

In conclusion from the data that has been collected Britain tends to import much of its products from other parts of the world where production levels are high and prices are cheap.