Agency, Gender Identities, and Clothing Consumption: The Discourse on Garment Workers

Agency, Gender Identities, and Clothing Consumption: The Discourse on Garment Workers

Fatema Rouson Jahan
Copyright: © 2019 |Pages: 16
ISBN13: 9781522575108|ISBN10: 1522575103|EISBN13: 9781522575115
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-7510-8.ch006
Cite Chapter Cite Chapter

MLA

Jahan, Fatema Rouson. "Agency, Gender Identities, and Clothing Consumption: The Discourse on Garment Workers." Gender Economics: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice, edited by Information Resources Management Association, IGI Global, 2019, pp. 119-134. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-7510-8.ch006

APA

Jahan, F. R. (2019). Agency, Gender Identities, and Clothing Consumption: The Discourse on Garment Workers. In I. Management Association (Ed.), Gender Economics: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice (pp. 119-134). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-7510-8.ch006

Chicago

Jahan, Fatema Rouson. "Agency, Gender Identities, and Clothing Consumption: The Discourse on Garment Workers." In Gender Economics: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice, edited by Information Resources Management Association, 119-134. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2019. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-7510-8.ch006

Export Reference

Mendeley
Favorite

Abstract

The chapter critically analyses the discourses on global factory workers that rest on three assumptions. First, the discussions of production are centred on stories of victimhood and produce a homogeneous image of third world workers as cheap and docile, who are affected by global labour market dynamics similarly and equally. Second, the third world is always theorised as a site of production and women factory workers are always positioned as sweatshop workers and never as consumers. Third, women's role as consumers appears only in relation to white women from the global north, who are assumed to have more purchasing power. Third world workers' consumption practices have been largely overlooked. The chapter problematises some of these assumptions. It proposes to look at the gender dynamics in the lives of women workers in global garment factories with a focus on their clothing consumption in order to further an approach that acknowledges the heterogeneity and agency of garment workers.

Request Access

You do not own this content. Please login to recommend this title to your institution's librarian or purchase it from the IGI Global bookstore.