‘Grabbing’ Citizenship: Bangladeshi Woman Workers’ Response to Governmentality

• Main Authors: Jui-Han Kan, 甘睿涵
• Other Authors: Mei-Hsia Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/h88um7

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 人類學研究所 === 107 === My thesis mainly focuses on following questions: In the social-cultural context of Bangladesh, what changes might happen to the state of right of a woman, when she became a garment worker? What kinds of governmentality have been operating considering these changes? What might the convergence of different identities or subjectivities, such as woman, worker or citizen, might shape the contents of right? I respond to the above questions from three aspects. First, when looking at Dhaka Export Processing Zone constructed by the state with special legislation from the local society, it can be tell that a temporal, particular gender order has emerged in the area. However, local patron-client politics is still penetrating. Outside the zone, in the urban space, the issue of the residence of woman workers also highlighted nowadays the wrestling of patron-client relationships, the national development plan and the sustained gender orders. I will explain how woman workers respond to this governmentality in choice of residence. I examine worker’s organizations and assemblies as my second aspect. With the expansion of garment industry, various non-governmental organizations, trade unions, and multinational organizations have emerged. They are both actors and knowledge-mediators, propagating civic awareness and civil rights related to woman workers. According to the organization I visited, a notable tendency is the increasing status of female leader in decision-making process, comparing to traditional mode of operation in most trade unions. This helps establishing a public female-friendly space, responding to woman workers’ daily needs, illness, mental pressure as well as their responsibility to family, therefor effectively improving the relationship between workers and organizations. It is worth noting that when female workers empower themselves through organizational activities, the organizations continue to extend its influence to their daily lives, forming a new distinction between workers. I put my last focus on one of the ‘long-lived’ ‘illegal’ slums in Dhaka city. Slums continually blur the categories of established governmentality and civil society. In the slum I visited, I find that activities according to different states of citizenship among slum residents are on the one hand subject to the patron-client politics, that is, those who master the external resources can form a dominance mechanism internally, being closer to the state of right as legitimate citizens than other residents in the slum. On the other hand, the slum serves as a political sphere, which is fiercely competitive, but with more opportunities for women to participate in. I conclude the thesis by pointing out that, under the dominance of gender order, factory management and urban governmentality, the states of right of woman workers in Bangladesh are vulnerable, irregular and easy to be deprived comparing to ordinary citizens. However, by building new social relations, participating in organizational activities, absorbing knowledge and accumulating experiences of negotiation, woman workers keep enriching the visions of right, and restoring their relations with the state by forming a more empirical and relational concept of right. They are carrying out a multifaceted and devious practice of ‘grabbing’ citizenship.