Tethered Fates

Reviews / Votes

This book is a timely addition to the literature on the promise and limitation of CSR [corporate social responsibility] and the private governance of transnational production.... a wealth of methodological insights...allows Hertel to provide fascinating, empirically rich accounts of individual everyday socioeconomic challenges in light of the local incarnation of economic globalization and perceptions of community needs, as well as knowledge of, interest in, experiences with, and assessments of stakeholder dialogues between the local community and the companies that tie them to global value chains. * Tim Buethe, Perspectives on Politics * Tethered Fates, though neatly structured and designed around two tightly focused case studies, is a radical book in many ways; it encourages the reader to think deeply about everything from the nature of consultation to broader themes like responsibility for poverty and the very role of business in society. As a short, engagingly written work, it is very accessible for non-specialists, as well as anyone with an interest in the business human rights or business ethics fields. * Andy Symington, Australian Journal of Human Rights * Overall, the author successfully brings together diverse sources of data to present a rich and compelling narrative that draws attention to the underexplored experiences of stakeholders connected to the activities of global businesses. The findings and recommendations in Tethered Fates can provide practical guidance to practitioners and can set an agenda for future research on how international businesses engage with local communities. * Rachel Alexander, ILR Review * Shareen Hertel's careful and timely research eloquently exposes how business-influenced social responsibility initiatives often leave community members out of the remedy process when harmed by business activities. In contrast, 'worker-driven social responsibility' (WSR) initiatives provide the crucial element of grassroots engagement that often makes remedy possible. Masterfully employing a range of methods from statistical analysis to participant-observation in two small factory towns in the Dominican Republic, Hertel provides a crucial contribution to the literature on social responsibility in global supply chains. This book is highly recommended to scholars and practitioners alike."-Mark Anner, Associate Professor of Labor and Employment Relations, and Political Science, The Pennsylvania State University This book is an important contribution to the ongoing debates around Business and Human Rights (BHR). The research is grounded in case studies where Hertel argues for an alternative Worker-driven Social Responsibility (WSR) paradigm developed by workers and community-based allies. The book also illuminates the potential and limits to WSR and BHR strategies, and points to the need to look at structural roots of poverty and concludes with a renewed call for more robust theory and practice that foregrounds economic rights remedies that are inclusive, dynamic, and adaptive to the human rights challenges of current supply chains in the global economy."-Radhika Balakrishnan, co-author of Rethinking Economic Policy for Social Justice: The Radical Potential of Human Rights With this meticulous work, Hertel gifts the reader with a rare gem of social science research in the business and human rights space. Through a grounded approach and fresh primary data, she steers our attention to the fates of people-communities as well as workers-tied up in global supply chains and to the systemic poverty that creates the vulnerabilities in the first place. Tethered Fates is a compelling argument for a concept of remedy that considers business responsibility for the broader underdevelopment and underemployment in a society and for why the responsibility to remedy needs to be built into our business models."-Joanne Bauer, Adjunct Professor of International Affairs, Columbia University and Co-Founder, Rights CoLab A masterful expansion of our thinking on economic and social rights, grassroots participation in global governance, and the power relations of global supply chains. Hertel reveals the limitations of the 'business as usual' model of corporate social responsibility and carefully explores alternatives, with an effective combination of history, mapping, and interviews. This study fills important gaps and advances the agenda of human rights scholarship in an era of global challenge."-Alison Brysk, author of The Struggle for Freedom from Fear: Contesting Violence against Women at the Frontiers of Globalization 14/01/2019