From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras: Gender, Labor, and Globalization in Nicaragua (American Encounters/Global Interactions)
Price 71.53 - 89.95 USD
From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras is a major contribution to the study of globalization, labor, and womenrsquo;s movements. Jennifer Bickham Mendez presents a detailed ethnographic account of the Nicaraguan Working and Unemployed Womenrsquo;s Movement, ldquo;MarÃa Elena Cuadrardquo; (mec), which emerged as an autonomous organization in 1994. Most of its efforts revolve around organizing women workers in Nicaraguarsquo;s free trade zones and working to improve conditions in maquiladora factories. Mendez examines the structural and cultural elements of mec in order to demonstrate how globalization affects grassroots advocacy for social and economic justice. She argues that globalization has created opportunities for new forms of organizing among those local populations that suffer its effects and that mec, which has forged vital links with transnational feminist and labor groups, exemplifies the possibilitiesmdash;and pitfallsmdash;of this new type of organizing. Mendez draws on interviews with leaders and program participants, including maquiladora workers; her participant observation while she worked as a volunteer within the organization; and analysis of the public statements, speeches, and texts written by mec members. She provides a sense of the day-to-day operations of the group as well as its strategies. By exploring the tension between mec and transnational feminist, labor, and solidarity networks, she illustrates how mec womenrsquo;s outlooks are shaped by both their revolutionary roots within the Sandinista regime and their exposure to global discourses of human rights and citizenship. The complexities of the womenrsquo;s labor movement analyzed in From the Revolution to the Maquiladoras speak to social and economic justice movements in the many locales around the world.