ABSTRACT
A major concept in world-system theory is that of incorporation. Incorporation is the process whereby regions of the world outside the capitalist world-economy come to be drawn into it. When areas are incorporated, they lose many of their precapitalist features and their economies begin to hum to the rhythms of capitalist commodity production. In this article, Thomas D. Hall argues that the process of incorporation has been viewed too simplistically by conventional world-system theory. Incorporation is a complex process, he asserts, and it is affected by many factors that have been insufficiently recognized and appreciated. The nature of incorporation varies in at least four major ways: in terms of the nature of the state or system that is doing the incorporating; in terms of the types of groups that are being incorporated; with regard to the timing of incorporation; and with respect to the degree of incorporation. Hall insists that incorporated groups play a more active and vital role in the process of incorporation than has usually been thought. He notes that a group’s level of sociopolitical development is often a crucial determinant of the specifics of the incorporation process. He also believes that the incorporation process is longer and more drawn out than is normally believed. An especially important contribution made by Hall is his effort to subdivide the category of “periphery” into several variant types: “contact periphery,” “region of refuge,” and “dependent periphery.” It is only the last of these that has been of serious interest to most world-system theorists, but Hall insists that the other two types are also of real importance.
