Organizing Women Workers in the Informal Economy: Beyond the Weapons of the Weak

ISBN-13: 9781780324517 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 312 str.

Naila Kabeer;Ratna Sudarshan;Kirsty Milward

Opis

Women have often been divided by intersecting inequalities: class, race, ethnicity caste, amongst others. Their weapons of resistance have been the traditional weapons of the weak: hidden subversions and individualized struggles. This book explores the emergence of an alternative repertoire among women working in the growing informal sectors of the global south: the weapons of organization and mobilization. It offers vibrant accounts of collective action by organizations of women working as farm workers, sex workers, domestic workers, waste pickers, fisheries workers and migrant factory. With first-hand accounts from authors closely involved in emerging organizations, this collection documents how women workers have come together to carve out new identities, define their own agendas and develop collective strategies of resistance and struggle.

Spis treści

Introduction. Beyond the Weapons of the Weak: Organizing Women Workers in the Informal Economy - Naila Kabeer, Kirsty Milward and Ratna Sudarshan 1. Women and Rural Trade Unions in North-East Brazil - Ben Selwyn 2. Understanding the Dynamics of an NGO/MBO Partnership: Organizing and Working With Farm Women in South Africa - Colette Solomon 3. Organizing for Life and Livelihoods in the Mountains of Uttarakhand: the Experience of Uttarakhand Mahila Parishad - Anuradha Pande 4. Negotiating Patriarchies: Women Fisheries Workers Build SNEHA in Tamil Nadu - Jesu Rethinam 5. 'If You Don't See a Light in the Darkness, You Must Light a Fire': Brazilian Domestic Workers' Struggle for Rights - Andrea Cornwall with Creuze Oliveira and Terezinha Gonçalves 6. The Challenge of Organizing Domestic Workers in Bangalore: Caste, Gender and Employer-Employee Relations in the Informal Economy - Geeta Menon 7. Power at the Bottom of the Heap: Organizing Waste Pickers in Pune - Lakshmi Narayan and Poornima Chikarmane 8. Sex, Work and Citizenship: the VAMP Sex Workers' Collective in Maharashtra - Meena Seshu 9. Gender, Ethnicity and the Illegal 'Other': Women from Burma Organizing Women Across Borders - Jackie Pollock Endnote. Looking back on Four Decades of Organizing: the Experience of SEWA - Ela Bhatt