Globalisation of manufacturing in post-war Britain
Dr Thomas Birtchnell (University of Wollongong, Australia), examines the processes by which the British - following the Second World War- were encouraged to become part of the complex, distributed and far-spanning geographies of manufacturing which are prevalent today.
This followed the war time ‘Make do and Mend’ and ‘austerity’ campaigns and he examines how ‘post-Second World War consumers were entreated to forego localism, embrace the global and ‘export or die’.
He explores how the ‘Fill the ships and we shall fill the shops’ campaign, which he recognises is chauvinistic and has echoes of war time propaganda, encouraged Britons to embrace circuitous and reciprocal trade across regions – which are now a hallmark of globalisation.
In this accompanying video and research paper he provides an overview of his work, which was presented as an award winning research paper for the Society’s Journal Area.
- Interview
The Making of Geographies of Manufacturing
Thomas Birtchnell is a Lecturer of Sustainable Communities at the University of Wollongong, Australia
- Article
Trade, manufacturing, and microchips
Across the globe there is a shortfall in microchips which is having a huge knock-on effect in manufacturing and the tech industry
- Activity
American Factory
This Netflix film looks at geopolitics, superpower geography, the ‘rise of China’, globalisation and deindustrialisation