Everyday Life of Ready-made Garment Kormi in Bangladesh: An Ethnography of Neoliberalism (Approaches to Social Inequality and Difference)

This book portrays the scene where corporate international trade agreements, a new neoliberal state regime, and a growing textile market have contributed to the becoming of a new class of Muslim female workers―who labor in Bangladesh’s apparel export factories under conditions of neoliberal capitalism. The garment kormi ―often abstracted by the homogenizing category of the “garment worker”―remain lost in the statistics of development and empowerment or contrarily exploitation. Thereby, focusing on the everyday lives of garment kormi, i.e., workers’ stories than on the collective of garment workers as a category, this book at one front highlights the neoliberal structures of difference and inequality, and on the other reflects on the potential of egalitarianism and change in terms of novel ways of comprising and expressing life-worlds. It shows that the values in life and the structures that govern life, such as contemporary Bangladesh’s neoliberal order, kinship relationality, and religiosity, are co-constitutive, multi-layered, and always on the move, never fixed. Preface Acknowledgments Praise for Everyday Life of Ready-made Garment Kormi in Bangladesh Contents About the Author Abbreviations List of Figures Part I Chapter 1: Contextualizing Ready-Made Garment Work in Bangladesh The Garment Kormi: Who, Why, and How? The Contradictions and Gaps Inequality, Difference, and the Garment Kormi Garment Kormi and the Parameters of Analysis Situating ‘Everyday Life’ Everyday Life and Capitalism Everyday Life and Work Everyday Life and Neoliberalism Field Locations Methodology: Access to the Factory and Initial Encounters Propositions Chapter Overview References Part II Chapter 2: The Roots of Local Capitalism: Outlining and Understanding Global Connections Introduction Understanding Capitalism in Bangladesh: An Outline of the Connections The Mughals and the Extraction of Wealth from the Villages The British and the Drain of Wealth from the Colony Land Distribution in the Postcolonial Era, Structural Adjustments, and Pauperization Development of the Garment Industry and the Continuation of the Process of Accumulation Global Capital and the State: Emerging Inequalities Global Policies and Uneven Market Relations Structural Power and Bangladesh’s Transition Toward Industrial Capitalism Concluding Remarks References Chapter 3: Tensions and Negotiations in Neoliberalism: Emergence of Garment Kormi as the Model Citizens Introduction Rebuilding the Sonar Bangla Through Modeling Its Citizens The Woman Question and the Financialization of Social Life Woman as (Industrial) Garment Kormi: From Burden to Prospects Concluding Remarks References Part III Chapter 4: Becoming Garment Kormi: Life in the Garment Factory Introduction Becoming Garment Kormi: A Way Out of Economic Crisis and More ‘At Least We Do Not Have to Worry About Our Next Meal’ ‘The Return One Receives from Garments Is Better than Agriculture’ ‘I Can Make Changes in My Life Because of My Earnings in Garment Work’ ‘The Hard Work Is Worthwhile’ ‘It Is Good but not Good Enough’ Garment Kormi: Contextualizing Industrial Lives The Recruitment Process: The Long Wait The Inclusive Excluded Space During the Lunch Breaks The Silent Power of the ‘Seniors’ The Structure Inside the Factory Operators and Supervisors Workers’ Disagreements with Management About Salaries Contested Authority in the Work Process Work and Time Concluding Remarks References Chapter 5: Kinship in the Factory: Garment Kormi Living a Life Away from Home Introduction Garment Kormi and Aspects of Relatedness: The Ideological World Getting a Job and Navigating the Factory Regime Disciplinary Power and Kinship Ideology in the Work Process Hierarchy of Values Workers in the Factory: Uncertainty, Hope, and Collective Resistance (Religious) Ideologies and the Paradoxes of Collective Action Kinship Relationality: Dependency in Autonomy Kinship Without ‘Fixed Faces’: Flexibility in Relatedness Authority, Power, and the Paradoxes of Relatedness in the Factory Concluding Remarks References Chapter 6: Negotiating the Public and the Private: Garment Kormi Becoming Joggo Introduction Socio-economic Effects of ‘Modern Industry Work’ Roles and Responsibilities at Home The Earner Versus the Manager of Finances Marriage by One’s Own Choice Overcoming Stigma Life as Garment Kormi Work as Responsibility: For Family and Factory Ideas About Money: Expanding Necessities Ideas About Consumer Items Value of Work as Freedom and Becoming Joggo Concluding Remarks References Chapter 7: Dare to Dream: Remaking Everyday Realities Introduction Worth, Uncertainty, and Futures The Family: Responsibility and Desire Life on Workdays and Weekends The Payday Shopping for Loved Ones and the Plan for a ‘Happy’ Day Today’s Hard Work Will Remake the Future Distant Future Scenarios The Capacity of Aspirations for the Future Ideological Totalization and Alternative Collective Sociality Concluding Remarks References Part IV Chapter 8: Paradoxes of Factory Compliance: Auditing, CSR, and ‘New’ Dispossession Introduction Agenda for a Fairer Future: Previsioning Instruments Auditing in RMG Factories: Performative Rituals and ‘New’ Dispossession Compliance Practices: A Safeguard for Bideshis Paradoxes of CSR: Labor Control to Corporate Branding The Influence of Buying Practices: Punctuated Times The Making of Workers into Legal Subjects Concluding Remarks References Part V Chapter 9: The Multiple Realities of Neoliberalism and Garment Kormi The Overarching Context Employment and the Multiple Realities of Garment Kormi Conclusions: Women, the State, and Neoliberalism(s) in Bangladesh References Chapter 10: Epilogue: During the Pandemic Garment Kormi and Coronavirus: Events of Abandonment Global Brands Must Do Their Part A Big Appears While Many Smalls Disappear Whose Sustainability Is It Anyway? Work Comes at a Price References Index