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Paper short abstract

This article analyzes the contrasting trajectories of “staying” and “moving” among Portuguese seamstresses, reflecting not only on what leads them to pursue the dream of a “good life”, but also on how this dream exposes them to harsher working conditions and conscious sacrifices.

Paper long abstract

In the literature on the textile industry in the Global South, it is common to observe that women, driven by the dream of a “good life”, migrate from rural areas to urban centers in search of work in garment factories (Nathan et al., 2022). In Portugal, during the 1980s, many textile workers, similarly driven by this dream - shaped by poor working conditions and economic insecurity in the sector - migrated to the French textile industry in search of employment (Rei, 2022).

Although today, as demonstrated by the ethnographic research I conducted with unionized Portuguese seamstresses, the dream of a “good life” and the possibility of moving to other factories to achieve better working conditions and a dignified life, continue to structure these women’s life projects, this desire is strongly conditioned by their immediate struggles (Narotzky and Smith, 2006).

This article, which analyzes the contrasting trajectories of “staying” and “moving” among my interlocutors, seeks to show that what leads them to move, more than the pursuit of better working conditions, is the desire to spend more time with their children and care for them better.

In the end, I conclude that the pursuit of the imagined “good life” leads these women to often encounter more adverse working conditions, and consequently to consciously sacrifice their own physical and emotional well-being. This paradox highlights how dreams can both drive action and reproduce vulnerabilities, showing that mobility and hope are deeply intertwined with risk and sacrifice, even when choices are made consciously.