The politics of white women's underwear in Sri Lanka's open economy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12426580 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Cormac Lynch (0000-0002-1011-2722, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 87-125 |
| Publication date | 2002-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Politics International Studies in Gender State & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1072-4745 • E-ISSN: 1468-2893 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/sp/9.1.87 |
| OpenAlex | W2144885021 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 11 |
| References cited | 13 |
In 1992 the Sri Lankan government offered private investors financial incentives to establish two hundred export-oriented garment factories in villages throughout the island. The political opposition’s critical response was to argue that in these garment factories, “our innocent girls are sewing underwear for white women.” This article examines the meaning and impact of this critique by placing it in the context of the intertwining discourses and practices of nationalism and sexuality in Sri Lanka. This case study has wide comparative implications. When nation-states become increasingly involved in the global economy, nationalists often debate the cultural effects of economic shifts. By considering how economic and cultural interests are tightly interwoven and mutually constitutive, I aim to further our understandings of how and why gender is deployed in these debates. Moreover, by considering how these debates actually affected working women, I aim to highlight the ways in which debates such as these can influence social practices. In 1992 the Sri Lankan government offered private investors tremendous financial incentives to establish two hundred exportoriented garment factories in villages throughout the island—in some areas so remote that roads had to be widened and paved and electricity and water pipes had to be installed before garment production
Political science · Politics · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Sri lanka · White (mutation · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Sex work and related issues
Revisioning Gender, an Introduction
Respectability and rights. Sexual and reproductive health and rights of Sri Lankan women formerly involved in prostitution
Gender Goes Global
Inconspicuous Consumption
Other’s place or othering space
Women workers in the apparel sector
The Use of Language to Disempower
A Social Reproduction Theory of Gender Violence
Religion's 'state effects
Milk Teeth and Jet Planes
Bridging family boundaries
Nationalisms and Sexualities
Globalization and Its Discontents
Woman-Nation-State
Sri Lanka
Global feminization through flexible labor
Thoroughly Modern Revolutionaries
Imperial Leather
The Global Situation
The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers
Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline, Second Edition
The Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity
Policing the Black Woman's Body in an Urban Context
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2004 - 2023 (20) |
| Highly cited | No |