ABSTRACT
World-system theory has long been identified with its founding theorist, Immanuel Wallerstein, and his close associates at the Braudel Center. This chapter attempts to capture some of that scholarly ferment by examining some examples of new issues and applications of the world-system approach among its practitioners. Kathryn Ward cites her own research that linked incorporation into the world-economy to the declining status of peripheral women and their continued high fertility. The world-system perspective developed more or less at the same time that a growing group of feminist scholars was creating a whole body of research and theory on the role and nature of gender in society. Racism is often mentioned together with sexism in the world-system theory literature. World-system theory, like many neo-Marxist theories, was at first heavily biased toward explanations based on various "structural" variables related to the global system of political-economy.
