sanguine on these sorts of initiatives, which
have considerable overlap with standard-based
regulation. Mutersbaugh (2002) has noted that
certification processes can create new work
routines and new levels ofsurveillance.
Another area that has seen a good deal of
recent empirical work is in the transformation
and consolidation of food processing, market-
ing andretailingsectors. Many have com-
mented on the enhanced power of retailers in
food chains at the same time that supermar-
kets themselves have been at forefront of eth-
ical trading initiatives (Marsden and Wrigley,
1995). Changing patterns of food consump-
tion associated with the fast food industry and
multiple-jobhouseholdsare becoming major
objects of study, as well, articulating with
public healthconcerns regarding a widely
discussed crisis of obesity. This is an area that
is likely to incite lively debate with geographers
of the body, who are more sceptical of the
discourse of obesity (Longhurst, 2005). This
last research direction augments a growing
literature attentive to the ways in which eating
is simultaneously metabolic and ethical, such
that thebodyis a site where various sorts of
food anxieties are mediated (Stassart and
Whatmore, 2003). Of course, virtually all
of the above recent trends are interrelated
and at the same time point to the extreme
bifurcations within both food provision and
consumption. For these reasons and many
others, geography of food has become a rich
area of enquiry indeed. jgu
Suggested reading
Atkins and Bowler (2001); Freidberg (2004);
Lang and Heasman (2004); Winter (2004).
footloose industry An industry that can
operate successfully in a wide variety of loca-
tions because it has no strong material orien-
tation or market orientation requirements and
wide spatial margins to profitability. Transport
usually involves only a very small proportion
of its cost structure – as in the establishment
of call centres in countries many thousands
of miles from the customers served. rj
Fordism The term used to describe both the
manufacturing techniques and societal condi-
tions underlying themode of production
developed by Henry Ford in the USA during
the early 1900s. Ford revolutionized the pro-
duction of the motor car, as well as manufac-
turing more generally, through his system
which was based around four main principles:
(1) vertical integration, whereby all elements
of the manufacturing process take place at one
site and assembly occurs on a moving produc-
tion line; (2) scientific management and the
principles of taylorismthat allow worker
productivityto be increased; (3) standard-
ization andeconomies of scalewith a limited
number or only one product model offered;
and (4) mass consumption as aregime of
accumulation, driven by the fact that workers
are paid well and thus became consumers
themselves and create a self-reproducing
demand for goods.
As work framed under the regulation
theoryofpolitical economyhas shown,
Fordism was widely adopted by manufactur-
ers in the post-Second World War period and
was applied to industries as diverse as biscuit
production and film. Because of the unpreced-
ented period of economic growth and stability
associated with Fordism up until the 1970s,
the period became known as the ‘Golden Age’
of Fordism (Glyn, Hughes, Lipietz and Singh,
1991). However, the very principles upon
which Fordism was founded were also respon-
sible for its undoing in the 1970s. Consumers
began to develop a disdain for the homogen-
ization associated with the one size fits all
approach of Fordist manufacturing. Scientific
management and the deskilling of work led to
worker dissatisfaction and frustration, because
of the monotonous and time-pressurized
production in factories. In addition, economic
instability, particularly associated with the
OPECoil crisis, led to a slow-down in wage
increases, thus threatening the whole regime
of accumulation upon which Fordism was
founded. At the same time, workers began to
rebel against the way management and work-
ers were distinct and separate categories in
Fordism. This created little opportunity
for progression, but most significantly meant
that wage negotiations between labour and
management took place through collective
bargaining, something accepted in times of
large wage increases but rejected as wage
increases declined. However, as Sayer and
Walker (1992) point out, this does not mean
that Fordism ended in this period and was
replaced bypost-fordism. Rather, Fordism
was challenged (but not necessarily displaced)
by the (re-)emergence of different logics of
production andaccumulation.
For geographers, Fordism is often associ-
ated with the emergence of important indus-
trialregionssuch as the Black Country in
the West Midlands of the UK (see Daniels,
Bradshaw, Shaw and Sidaway, 2005); indus-
tries such asfilmproduction, in particular inGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_F Final Proof page 260 31.3.2009 1:20pmFOOTLOOSE INDUSTRY