Global Value Chain Participation and Inequality in Agro‐food Industries in the Global South

ABSTRACT Since the 1990s, global value chains have been a central vehicle for development strategies in Global South countries, driving their integration into the global economy. Much critical scholarship has highlighted the adverse social and environmental costs, the asymmetries of power in inter‐firm relations, and the unfair distribution of benefits that often arise from value chain participation. However, there has been limited analysis of whether global integration reproduces existing inequalities. This article examines how three inter‐connected dimensions of inequality — within , along and through global value chains — are manifested in selected agro‐food industries in Chile and South Africa. While the first two dimensions have been thoroughly examined (usually independently from each other), inequality through chains has received less attention. This article connects these three dimensions to highlight how structural inequalities within countries allow specific forms of incorporation in global value chains. Such incorporations in turn tend to consolidate or even worsen existing domestic inequalities.