Still Dancing Together: Women's Workers' Mobilization, State Action and Global Capital

• Published in: Journal of world-systems research Vol. 21; no. 2; p. 549
• Main Author: Plankey-Videla, Nancy
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pittsburgh University Library System, University of Pittsburgh 01.01.2015
• Subjects: Clothing industry; Competition; Criticism; Economic recession; Employment; Essays; Females; Floods; Garment industry; Globalization; Governance; Industrial tribunals; International trade; Labor disputes; Labor law; Methodological problems; Mobilization; Textile industry; Wages & salaries; Weather; Women; Workers; United States > US
• DOI: 10.5195/jwsr.2015.32

I appreciate the opportunity this symposium offers to revisit We Are in This Dance Together, and to rethink some of the book's insights from a world systems perspective. As a feminist ethnographer, my goal was to understand women workers' lives and how they participated in shaping their own futures as active agents. Being immersed in the shop floor, flooded with daily experiences, conversations, and observations, I focused on social relations of power at the shop floor and state institutional levels rather than the world system. Global power dynamics, however, were palpable on the shop floor. This forum allows me to revisit Moctezuma, examine how the apparel industry and state policy have changed since my time there in ways that provide new opportunities and constraints for workers, and reflect on questions and insights provided by the essayists.