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Crossing the Factory Frontier: Gender, Place and Power in the Mexican Maquiladora
Author(s) -
Wright Melissa W.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8330.00047
Subject(s) - ideology , nationality , gender studies , frontier , sociology , context (archaeology) , power (physics) , ethnic group , division of labour , subject (documents) , resistance (ecology) , representation (politics) , political science , immigration , law , history , anthropology , politics , library science , ecology , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , computer science , biology
A pressing question raised by contemporary feminist theorists is how to conceptualize the intricate relationship between women as social agents and “Women”— an ideological representation of a female subject. Scholars have shown how women must often disavow this Woman in trying to establish their own careers. This article explores one facet of this issue by tracing one woman's journey through a Mexican maquiladora in the hope of demonstrating how this ideology produces the capitalist division of labor through the reproduction of sex‐difference, nationality, and ethnic categories within one firm. The account raises some interesting questions about resistance, which may not be resolvable in the context of the workplace alone.