1. Barbie Doll is truly a Global Citizen: Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toycompany Mattel corporation and launched in March 1959. The doll sells at the rate of two per second, bringing the Mattel Corporation based in Los Angeles, U.S.A., well over a billion dollars in P annual revenues. Although Barbie sells mainly in the United States, Europe, and Japan, it can also be found in 140 countries around the world. She is truly a global citizen. Barbie was never made in the United States.

The first doll was made in Japan in 1959 when that country was still recovering from the Second World War and wages were low. As wages rose in Japan, Barbie production moved to other lowwage countries in Asia. Barbie’s multiple origins today tell us a great deal about the operation of global commodity chains. Barbie is designed in the United States, where her marketing and advertising strategies are devised and where most of the die profits are made.

But the only physical aspect of Barbie that is made in the USA is her cardboard packaging, along with some of the paints and oils that are used to decorate the doll. Barbie’s body and wardrobe span the globe in their origins. Barbie begins her life in Saudi Arabia, where oil is extracted and then refined into ethylene that is used to create her plastic body.

Taiwan’s state-owned oil Importer, their Chinese Petroleum Corporation buys the Ethylene and sells it to Taiwan’s Formosa Plastic Corporation, the world’s largest producer of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC). The pellets are then shipped to southern China, Indonesia and Malaysia. The plastic moulded body of Barbie are made in the U.S.A. Once Barbie’s body is moulded she gets her Nylon hair from Japan, her Cotton dresses are made in China and shipped into Hong Kong. Thus Barbie in a way is a global citizen.

But, in perspective, according to Anthony Giddens, “What Barbie production and consumption shows is the effectiveness of globalization processes in connecting together the world’s economics. However, it also demonstrates the unevenness of globalization’s impact, which enables some countries to benefit at the expense of others. This means that we cannot assume that global commodity chains will inevitably promote development right across the chains of societies involved.”