Maquiladora Production, Rising Expectations, and Alterglobalization Strategy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2369821 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mark Horowitz (0000-0003-1318-2029, University of Texas at Brownsville, USA,, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 677-688 |
| Publication date | 2009-09-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0896920509337615 |
| OpenAlex | W2047364346 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 11 |
Hailed by advocates as engines of job growth, the export factories in Mexico's maquiladora zone often spur severe criticism in activist circles for worker exploitation and abuses. Yet how do workers themselves perceive their wages and working conditions? In this essay I draw from several years of cross-border advocacy and 130 interviews with maquiladora workers in Reynosa and Juarez, Mexico to describe workers' perceptions. I demonstrate that workers' views are dynamic and ambivalent, bound up with their migratory histories and cross-border reference groups. Specifically, workers tend to express contentment with their working conditions, while sharply condemning their wages. Next, I consider the implications of the growing 'cross-border justice movement' along the Mexico-US border. I argue that a deepening of transnational advocacy networks holds the most strategic promise as a 'counterhegemonic', progressive politics
Ambivalence · Contentment · Criticism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2020 (10) |
| Highly cited | No |