Summary

Writings on women workers in the global economy have generally taken as their starting point the rise in female employment in industries in the light manufacturing for export sector. Another issue covered by the literature on gender and labor is migration, where the racialized as well as gendered nature of employment is thrown into sharp focus. Migration has been a major concern in much of the recent feminist literature on gender and employment is because one of the most significant features of contemporary processes of migration has been the feminization of these flows. But given the ways in which women workers both in export sector factories and as migrant domestic workers are subject to harsh workplace practices, social stigmatization, and systems of intense workplace control, the possibilities for resistance and change for some of these groups of workers are considered as well. Three intersecting literatures that focus on the topic of resistance to regimes of labor control in a variety of different workplaces (including the household) are discussed: first, those that focus on “everyday” forms of resistance; second, those that look more at resistance as an organized political strategy taking the form of trade union activism or involving nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); and third is a literature that considers the possibilities and limitations of a wider politics of resistance offered by things like corporate codes of conduct and corporate social responsibility.