Facing Two Crises. The Disembedding of Society and the Economy in the Furniture-Caravan District (Valdelsa, Tuscany)

What happens when market crisis and neoliberal reorganization hit a local industrial district, renowned for its social and political cohesion? This chapter is based on a diachronic perspective and interviews with entrepreneurs, workers, trade unionists and institutional representatives of the Valdelsa district between Florence and Siena. It examines the radically diverging local interpretations of the crisis of the furniture industries during the Nineteen-eighties and the recent market crisis of chassis for motorized caravans. A comparison of the two crises, considering also the “colonization” of the district by multinational companies, reveals a process of dis-embeddedness of the socio-political dimensions, resulting in a more hierarchical structure of what was once considered a model of socially integrated capitalism.