Challenging tradition: Unlocking new paths to regional industrial upgrading

Globalization is expected to benefit developing country manufacturers through exposure to quality-demanding markets and global buyers. Yet, its contribution to the process of local upgrading depends on the ability of these manufacturers to have access to and learn from global transactions. Growing awareness of the exclusion of smaller sized manufacturers from buyer-driven upgrading arrangements has led development scholars to document alternative strategies for global market insertion that are locally coordinated. But what happens when these alternative upgrading paths are themselves hindered by development-inhibiting relational dynamics at the local level? What options exist for unlocking entrenched social roles and practices in order to promote regional upgrading and with it the repositioning of an established manufacturing district? This paper explores this policy challenge within the context of a historic apparel-making district in West Central Mexico. It looks at the innovative steps taken by development practitioners to promote relational deepening between established manufacturing elites and their traditional subcontractors and, in turn, to encourage joint upgrading as a regional strategy for new market access.