Paper short abstract:

Using the GPN framing as a basis for unravelling women's experience of work in the cutflower industry of Zambia, the study concluded that women's agency is reflected in the survival strategies they employed. These strategies also point to sustainable outcomes that may arise for women's agency.

Paper long abstract:

Why focus on women's agency from a GPN perspective?

Women's experience of work and agency has received insignificant attention in the GPN literature. The GPN is influential in unravelling women's status and position in the chain because it maps out the networks and linkages that exist and power dynamics that arise but mainly focussing on companies. By focusing on companies, it neglects workers and the social dimensions of sustainability. Thus, taking what has been done so far on women's integration into global markets and extending the GPN framework to women workers' own accounts of work in the floricultural industry, this study places women workers' agency as the centre of analysis by capturing the different narratives of women's experience of work and how this relates to their home and community life. This contributes to broader questions of whether economic upgrading of the GPN is accompanied by social upgrading, i.e. the social and gender benefits from expansion into non-traditional agricultural exports.

The study found that, by women drawing on institutional structures, their own interactions with their colleagues, women expressed their agency in ingenious ways. First, discerning their environment, and second, positioning themselves within it. Ultimately, women had resolved to continue working, so the onus was on them to form strategic alliances with colleagues, or forego interactions when they were disruptive, but doing so allowed them to navigate the complex maze of social interaction and led to different sustainable outcomes for women due to their involvement in such production chains.