Description
Book SynopsisWomen as a group have often been divided by a number of intersecting inequalities: class, race, ethnicity, caste. As individuals - often isolated in reproductive or other home-based work - their weapons of resistance have tended to be restricted to the traditional weapons of the weak: hidden subversions and individualised struggles. Organizing Women Workers in the Informal Economy 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. This crucial book offers vibrant accounts of how women working as farm workers, sex workers, domestic workers, waste pickers, fisheries workers and migrant factory workers have organized for collective action. What gives these precarious workers the impetus and courage to take up these steps? What resources do they draw on in order to transcend their structurally disadvantaged position within the economy? And what continues to hamper their efforts to gain social recognition for themselves as women, as workers and as citizens? 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 for themselves, define what matters to them, and develop collective strategies of resistance and struggle.
Trade ReviewWhile acknowledging the organisational challenges faced and overcome, the essays in this important book mount a concerted challenge to the popular notion that certain kinds of informal workers are too isolated and invisible to be organised successfully. A must read for all looking to understand the organisational strategies which transform powerless labourers into worker citizens. * Dzodzi Tsikata, University of Ghana *
Women are exerting themselves across the world in wonderful ways. This is about more than combating vulnerability and oppression, although that is important enough. It is also about forging ways of living in which the human condition is enhanced. Women's organisations are reviving a sense of solidarity and rescuing the meaning of equality, while giving new meaning to the ethos of freedom. This book speaks to that agenda, and should be widely read. * Guy Standing, SOAS *
While many talk about women's empowerment, this book offers concrete and inspiring examples of how it is done! The lessons and insights from these cases are relevant to all of those concerned with how to build "people power" from the bottom-up in a global world. * John Gaventa, University of Sussex *
This book gets to the heart of the development challenge: by focusing on women workers, the informal economy, and organizing. With an insightful overview by the editors, illustrative case studies from several countries and an inspiring endnote by Ela Bhatt, founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association, the largest organization of women workers in the informal economy, this book is a must for anyone interested in the power of organization and the intersection of employment, poverty, and gender. * Marty Chen, Harvard Kennedy School *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. 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
