GENDER AND AGENCY: CLOTHING CONSUMPTION PRACTICES OF WOMEN FACTORY WORKERS IN BANGLADESH Fatema Rouson Jahan Department of Geography University College London Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of PhD December 2018 1 I, Fatema Rouson Jahan, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the clothing consumption practices of women factory workers in the garment industry of Bangladesh to develop an approach that acknowledges their agency. My research contributes to the wider debates on factory work, consumption and changing gender identities in the global labour market by incorporating the specificity of the Bangladeshi context. In comparison to the existing studies that focus on the lifestyle of single women who live independently and are unsupervised by the family, the present study explores the clothing choices of both single and married women who live with their families and are constantly guarded by their family members, relatives and collective networks. I locate my research within the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu’s (1977) ‘habitus’ and Deniz Kandiyoti’s (1988) ‘patriarchal bargain’, to understand how women workers exercise agency within a cultural context dominated by the norms of gender, purdah and patriarchy. I conducted sixty interviews and eight focus group discussions over a period of six months in the Narayanganj district of Bangladesh. My study analyses the agency of the women workers in the negotiation between different identities and contradictory traditions in their clothing consumption. First, there is a contradiction between dressing like other factory workers on special occasions and dressing differently on other occasions. Second, there is a contradiction between widespread stereotypes of the workers’ clothing choices that distinguish them from those of middle-class women and the workers’ own narratives, which resist such stereotypes. Third, there is a contradiction between adherence to the norms of purdah and paying lip service to those norms. And fourth, there is a contradiction between dressing as a Bengali and dressing as a Muslim. I argue that the women workers exercise their agency in choosing their clothing strategically so as to accommodate both their Bengali and their Muslim identity, a choice that both confirms their adherence to the norms in question and signals their willingness to redefine those norms. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to start by thanking my supervisor Professor Ann Varley for her support, co-operation, suggestions and comments. I also would like to thank my second supervisor Pushpa Arabindoo for her co-operation. My sincere thanks goes to all the professional services staff of Geography department at UCL. I am particularly grateful to Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK for their financial assistance. Without their support it would not have been possible to pursue my PhD degree in the UK. My thanks extend to two of my friends, Jeanne Firth and Sainabou Taal, for their support, co-operation and suggestions on my thesis chapters. I am also grateful to all my colleagues and administrative staffs in the department of Women and Gender Studies at University of Dhaka for their continuous support. I would be ungrateful if I do not acknowledge the amount of co-operation I received from the interviewees during my fieldwork. I am grateful to all of them for their time, support and love. I also would like to acknowledge the help and support of my four research assistants in the research process. I am particularly grateful to my relatives who gave me access to their factory, introduced me to another factory owner and managed accommodation for me during my fieldwork. I would like to express my gratitude to my parents, sister, in-laws, all of my family members and friends both in the UK and in Bangladesh for their unconditional support and love. Last but not the least, I am grateful to my husband, Saadat Hussain, for being a source of continuous love, support, encouragement and patience and my daughter Zainab for giving me strength, motivation and a reason to finish my thesis early. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ...........................................................................................5 LIST OF TABLE........................................................................................................9 LIST OF FIGURE ......................................................................................................9 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................10 LIST OF BENGALI WORDS..................................................................................11 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.............................................................................12 1.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................12 1.2 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY ..........................................................................................................13 1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ...........................................................................................................15 1.3.1 Understanding women producers as consumers.............................................................15 1.3.2 Incorporating specificity of the local context...................................................................16 1.3.3 Contributing to the literature on gender and the labour market in Bangladesh .............21 1.4 RESEARCH AIMS AND OBJECTIVES .....................................................................................................23 1.5 WHY STUDY CONSUMPTION............................................................................................................24 1.5.1 Why study clothing consumption.....................................................................................28 1.6 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS .................................................................................................................30 CHAPTER 2: WOMEN WORKERS IN GLOBAL FACTORIES: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................34 2.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................34 2.2 WOMEN WORKERS IN GLOBAL FACTORIES...........................................................................................35 2.3 GENDERED DYNAMICS WITHIN THE GLOBAL GARMENT ASSEMBLY ...........................................................39 2.4 GENDER, CONSUMPTION AND FACTORY WORKERS...............................................................................43 2.5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .............................................................................................................50 2.5.1 Theorising gender ............................................................................................................50 2.5.2 Theorising agency ............................................................................................................51 2.6 CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................59 5 CHAPTER 3: THE CONTEXT OF BANGLADESH .............................................61 3.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................61 3.2 THE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE RMG INDUSTRY IN BANGLADESH...........................................................62 3.3 WOMEN’S ENTRY INTO BANGLADESH’S GARMENT INDUSTRY .................................................................65 3.4 WOMEN’S EMPLOYMENT AND THE PRESENT STATUS OF WOMEN FACTORY WORKERS IN BANGLADESH ...........66 3.5 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FACTORY WORK FOR BANGLADESHI WOMEN..........................................................71 3.6 CRITICISMS OF AND CHALLENGES FACING THE GARMENT INDUSTRY..........................................................73 3.7 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................75 CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY............................................................................77 4.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................77 4.2 CASE STUDY LOCATION...................................................................................................................78 4.3 INITIAL FIELDWORK........................................................................................................................82 4.4 THE POSITIONALITY OF THE RESEARCHER AND ETHICAL ISSUES OF FEMINIST RESEARCH.................................83 4.5 SELECTION OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS.............................................................................................86 4.6 USE OF RESEARCH ASSISTANTS.........................................................................................................89 4.7 SELECTION OF