Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the emergent political subjectivities of garment workers visible in the multiple spaces created by the transnational advocacy & rights groups and localised networks of labour movements in the garment industry of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Paper long abstract:

Political subjectivity, as a subject–making process, is iterative in the sense that the form shifts as the context of the subject changes. The garment industry of Dhaka, known for its cheap labour, just-in-time manufacturing processes and deplorable labour conditions, is the focus of this paper that seeks to argue that political subjectivity is located not in only the location or space of work. The industry draws from time, strength and dreams of millions of workers who migrate from districts to the capital city for work and find ways to navigate the city and spaces that sustain workers and workplaces. Simultaneously, garment workers also navigate the colossal network of advocacy groups, local governmental authorities and localised activist circles that have narrativised the garment worker as either a victim of the larger capitalist processes or a militant–conspirator figure. However, the emergent subject in this neoliberal moment is seen to be equally alert to these narratives that have consistently invisibilized the culpability of capitalist extraction of gendered labour. As a result, political subjectivities are not just shaped by work or workspace, but the political economy of advocacy and activist spaces. Political subjectivity(ies), then, is not constituted uniformly but in several layers and meanings that exist simultaneously. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork and textual analysis of digital records, this paper seeks to assemble a response to the question — what are the registers through which we can locate or understand political subjectivities of garment workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh?