Embodied negotiations: identity, space and livelihood after trade zones in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

In this article, I analyze socio-spatial processes of subject-making at the center of the restructuring of export industries. To do so, I develop the concept of 'embodied negotiations' to explain the spatial and corporeal experience of trade zone workers reproduced as migrants with the collapse of garment exports in the Dominican Republic. Drawing on ethnographic research, I examine 'rural return' as both a livelihood strategy and a discourse shaped by inter-related gender and racial ideologies of labour as well as the uneven transnationalization of rural and urban localities. I show how the negotiation of social position by subjects marked by race, gender and class is always also a negotiation of spatial position in and between localities structured through raced, gendered and class relations. Men's efforts to remain in urban areas as a form of social 'whitening' are compared to women's resistance to rural return as an attempt to stay in circulation as paid labour. Overall, I argue that feminist research on global production should be 'spatialized' by attending to livelihoods and practices of subject-making that emerge in parallel to export restructuring.

Editorial Introduction

“…McMellon's paper attends the social construction and textualization of life. As with previous papers in the issue, this textualization is accomplished through social constructions of happiness and their "embodied negotiations" (Werner, 2010), which Werner describes as, "the negotiation of social position by subjects marked by race, gender and class is always also a negotiation of spatial position in and between localities structured through raced, gendered and class relations" (2010, p. 725).…”

Women’s changing domestic responsibilities in neoliberal Africa: a relational time-space analysis of Lesotho’s garment industry

“…Werner (2010) has called for a 'spatialisation' of feminist research on global production; we argue that not only spatial but spatio-temporal aspects of industrialisation are significant. As elsewhere, the garment factories employ a predominantly female workforce.…”

“…Few working women spend their earnings freely and most retain heavy domestic responsibilities (Elson 1999). Garment factorywork often entails migration to urban centres (Webber et al 2010;Werner 2010) and even across national borders (Crinis 2010), which transforms lives and can exacerbate vulnerability (Webber et al 2010, Werner 2010. Garment factorywork often entails migration to urban centres (Webber et al 2010;Werner 2010) and even across national borders (Crinis 2010), which transforms lives and can exacerbate vulnerability (Webber et al 2010, Werner 2010.…”

Beyond Upgrading: Gendered Labor and the Restructuring of Firms in the Dominican Republic

“…First, the creation of value from heterogeneous living labor depends upon a host of institutions beyond firms and firm networks including the labor market, the family, the household, and the state, and their ideological power that is effected through constructions not only of gender, but of racialization, heteronormativity, and other forms of social difference. Although I briefly touch on some of these other elements, I focus primarily on gender and labor process changes because of space considerations (see Werner 2010 for treatment of the nexus of households and export restructuring). Second, in developing the case study and analyzing its relevance to the current debates on upgrading, my intention was not to generalize its content with respect to gender and the restructuring of firms across countries and regions.…”