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Benjamin D. Brewer, PhD

Professor of Sociology

   HI THERE!

I am an economic sociologist interested in world-historical and world-systemic social change, global inequalities, sport, popular culture, and many other things. Most of my work has focused broadly on changes in the global division of labor and their impact on the global distribution of wealth, status and power. Currently I am studying handmade bicycle builders and their position within the global bike trade. You can read more about this work on the project blog: Handbuilding Value.

I have taught at James Madison University since 2005, where I am now Professor of Sociology. I regularly teach Social Issues in a Global Context, Introduction to Developing Societies, Sociological Inquiry, Work and Society,  Capitalism and Alternative Economies, and the Sociology of Sport.

 

   WORK & WRITINGS

Some things I have worked on (please drop me a line for pdf versions if you do not have library access):

Making the ‘handmade’ bike and trying to make a living: market objects, field-configuring events and some limits to market making” (2017) Consumption, Markets & Culture, 20(6): 523-538.

The commercial transformation of world football and the North–South divide: A global value chain analysis” (2017) International Review for the Sociology of Sport.

“Global Commodity Chains and the Organizational Grounding of Consumer Cultural Production”(2015) Critical Sociology, 41(4-5): 717–734.

Global Commodity Chains & World Income Inequalities: The Missing Link of Inequality and the ‘Upgrading’ Paradox” (2011) Journal of World-Systems Research, XVII(2): 308-327.

The Long Twentieth Century & the Cultural Turn: World-Historical Origins of the New Cultural Economy” (2011) Journal of World-Systems Research, XVII(1): 39-57.

Industrial Convergence and the Persistence of the North-South Income Divide: A Rejoinder to Firebaugh (2004)” with Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly J. Silver (2005) Studies in Comparative International Development40(1): 83-88.

Industrial Convergence and the Persistence of the North-South Divide” with Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly J. Silver (2003) Studies in Comparative International Development,38(1): 3–31.

Commercialization in Professional Cycling 1950-2001: Institutional Transformations and the Rationalization of ‘Doping’” (2002) Sociology of Sport Journal19(3): 276-301.

Trade Globalization Since 1795: Waves of Integration in the World-System” with Christopher Chase-Dunn and Yukio Kawano (2000) American Sociological Review65: 77-95.

 

Contact

brewerbd [at] jmu [dot] edu 

Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology
MSC 7501
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807