A Continuum of Choices and Constraints: Women’s Everyday Working Lives and Sense of Agency in the Ethiopian Garment Industry
(2023) In Northeast African Studies 23(2).- Abstract
- This study critically engages with the assumption that factory jobs will benefit both women themselves and overall development in Ethiopia, whose industrial policy is dedicated to labor-intensive light manufacturing. Drawing on fieldwork data collected in and around an export-oriented garment factory, it delves into the impact of women’s employment on their intra-household decision-making power, agency, and well-being. By taking a feminist political economy approach centered on the dynamics of social reproduction in the everyday, the findings add nuance to mainstream policy discourses by showing that despite miserable working conditions, different kinds of agency emerge and are mediated by gender norms and various worker identities beyond... (More)
- This study critically engages with the assumption that factory jobs will benefit both women themselves and overall development in Ethiopia, whose industrial policy is dedicated to labor-intensive light manufacturing. Drawing on fieldwork data collected in and around an export-oriented garment factory, it delves into the impact of women’s employment on their intra-household decision-making power, agency, and well-being. By taking a feminist political economy approach centered on the dynamics of social reproduction in the everyday, the findings add nuance to mainstream policy discourses by showing that despite miserable working conditions, different kinds of agency emerge and are mediated by gender norms and various worker identities beyond the factory floor. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/ab684899-4567-46ec-ac23-aa6d7d212554
- author
- Ternsjö, Linn LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Northeast African Studies
- volume
- 23
- issue
- 2
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105023303647
- DOI
- 10.14321/nortafristud.23.2.0013
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- ab684899-4567-46ec-ac23-aa6d7d212554
- alternative location
- https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/26/article/975830
- date added to LUP
- 2025-12-18 16:59:48
- date last changed
- 2025-12-19 09:05:49
@article{ab684899-4567-46ec-ac23-aa6d7d212554,
abstract = {{This study critically engages with the assumption that factory jobs will benefit both women themselves and overall development in Ethiopia, whose industrial policy is dedicated to labor-intensive light manufacturing. Drawing on fieldwork data collected in and around an export-oriented garment factory, it delves into the impact of women’s employment on their intra-household decision-making power, agency, and well-being. By taking a feminist political economy approach centered on the dynamics of social reproduction in the everyday, the findings add nuance to mainstream policy discourses by showing that despite miserable working conditions, different kinds of agency emerge and are mediated by gender norms and various worker identities beyond the factory floor.}},
author = {{Ternsjö, Linn}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
series = {{Northeast African Studies}},
title = {{A Continuum of Choices and Constraints: Women’s Everyday Working Lives and Sense of Agency in the Ethiopian Garment Industry}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.14321/nortafristud.23.2.0013}},
doi = {{10.14321/nortafristud.23.2.0013}},
volume = {{23}},
year = {{2023}},
}