IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v33y2019i6p895-912.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Precariousness, Gender, Resistance and Consent in the Face of Global Production Network’s ‘Reforms’ of Pakistan’s Garment Manufacturing Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Muhammad Ayaz

    (Institute of Business Administration – Karachi, Pakistan)

  • Muhammad Junaid Ashraf

    (Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan)

  • Trevor Hopper

    (University of Sussex, UK)

Abstract

This case study of the restructuring of Pakistan’s garment manufacturing industry explores how attempts to increase capital’s control over the labour process intersect with local patriarchal structures and trigger workers’ reflexivity and agency causing unanticipated consequences. Using Archer’s notion of agency, the article examines the theoretical space where capitalism meets patriarchy, and both are reproduced. The focus on reflexivity, anchored between objective contexts and agents’ personal concerns, helps theorize capital–labour–gender relations in global supply chains and explains workers’ impactful resistance to protect a supposedly precarious work regime. Our findings challenge the notion that globalization reduces workers’ agency and their potential for impactful resistance.

Suggested Citation

  • Muhammad Ayaz & Muhammad Junaid Ashraf & Trevor Hopper, 2019. "Precariousness, Gender, Resistance and Consent in the Face of Global Production Network’s ‘Reforms’ of Pakistan’s Garment Manufacturing Industry," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(6), pages 895-912, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:33:y:2019:i:6:p:895-912
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017019870735
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017019870735
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017019870735?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Annelies Goger, 2013. "From Disposable to Empowered: Rearticulating Labor in Sri Lankan Apparel Factories," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(11), pages 2628-2645, November.
    2. Makino, Momoe, 2012. "What motivates female operators to enter the garment industry in Pakistan in the post-MFA period?," IDE Discussion Papers 374, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    3. Alessandra Mezzadri, 2016. "Class, gender and the sweatshop: on the nexus between labour commodification and exploitation," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(10), pages 1877-1900, October.
    4. Donna Lee & Mark Hampton & Julia Jeyacheya, 2015. "The political economy of precarious work in the tourism industry in small island developing states," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 194-223, February.
    5. William Monteith & Lena Giesbert, 2017. "‘When the stomach is full we look for respect’: perceptions of ‘good work’ in the urban informal sectors of three developing countries," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 31(5), pages 816-833, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vivek Soundararajan & Miriam M. Wilhelm & Andrew Crane, 2021. "Humanizing Research on Working Conditions in Supply Chains: Building a Path to Decent Work," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 57(2), pages 3-13, April.
    2. Maryam Aldossari & Sara Chaudhry & Ahu Tatli & Cathrine Seierstad, 2023. "Catch-22: Token Women Trying to Reconcile Impossible Contradictions between Organisational and Societal Expectations," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(1), pages 39-57, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Chambers & Ayesha Ansari, 2018. "Ghar Mein KÄ m Hai (There is Work in the House)," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 141-163, August.
    2. Antonio Alvarez-Sousa, 2018. "The Problems of Tourist Sustainability in Cultural Cities: Socio-Political Perceptions and Interests Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-30, February.
    3. Kittisak Jermsittiparsert & Thitinan Chankoson, 2019. "Behavior of Tourism Industry under the Situation of Environmental Threats and Carbon Emission: Time Series Analysis from Thailand," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 9(6), pages 366-372.
    4. Jihye Kim & Wendy Olsen & Arkadiusz Wiśniowski, 2023. "Predicting Child-Labour Risks by Norms in India," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(6), pages 1605-1626, December.
    5. Hampton, Mark P. & Jeyacheya, Julia, 2015. "Power, Ownership and Tourism in Small Islands: Evidence from Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 481-495.
    6. Shalini Grover & Thomas Chambers & Patricia Jeffery, 2018. "Portraits of Women’s Paid Domestic-Care Labour," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 123-140, August.
    7. Solnet, David & Robinson, Richard N.S. & Baum, Tom & Yan, Hongmin, 2022. "Tourism work, media & COVID-19: A changed narrative?," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    8. Ronaldo Munck, 2020. "Work and Capitalist Globalization: Beyond Dualist Reason," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 371-386, September.
    9. Dominika Polkowska & Kamil Filipek, 2020. "Grateful Precarious Worker? Ukrainian Migrants in Poland," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 564-581, September.
    10. Rajneesh Narula, 2019. "Enforcing higher labor standards within developing country value chains: Consequences for MNEs and informal actors in a dual economy," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(9), pages 1622-1635, December.
    11. Barış Çıvak & Senem Besler, 2022. "A Critical Analysis of Managerial Control Mechanisms in Hotel Businesses," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(1), pages 21582440221, March.
    12. Gayatri Nair, 2023. "The Political Economy of Gig Work in the Pandemic: Social Hierarchies and Labour Control of Indian Platform Workers," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 18(3), pages 409-430, December.
    13. Madhumita Dutta, 2020. "Workplace, emotional bonds and agency: Everyday gendered experiences of work in an export processing zone in Tamil Nadu, India," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(7), pages 1357-1374, October.
    14. Tatiana López, 2021. "A practice ontology approach to labor control regimes in GPNs: Connecting ‘sites of labor control’ in the Bangalore export garment cluster," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1012-1030, August.
    15. Oya, Carlos & Schaefer, Florian, 2021. "The politics of labour relations in global production networks: Collective action, industrial parks, and local conflict in the Ethiopian apparel sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    16. Jeyacheya, Julia & Hampton, Mark P., 2020. "Wishful thinking or wise policy? Theorising tourism-led inclusive growth: Supply chains and host communities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    17. Alessandra Mezzadri & Kaustav Banerjee, 2021. "The afterlife of industrial work: Urban-to-rural labour transitions from the factory to the informal economy," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-158, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Katharina Grüneisl, 2024. "Becoming ‘farazat’: Re-examining feminisation from a Tunis used clothes sorting factory," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(3), pages 736-750, May.
    19. Jennifer Bair & Christian Berndt & Marc Boeckler & Marion Werner, 2013. "Guest Editorial," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(11), pages 2544-2552, November.
    20. Dimitri Ioannides & Szilvia Gyimóthy & Laura James, 2021. "From Liminal Labor to Decent Work: A Human-Centered Perspective on Sustainable Tourism Employment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-15, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:33:y:2019:i:6:p:895-912. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.