Sri Lankas Global Factory Workers
In Sri Lanka, the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) employs thousands of unmarried rural women, and their migration has aroused deep anxieties over female morality and ideal conduct. This book focuses on the global factory workers based in the FTZ, and analyzes intersections of gender, class and sexuality by looking at the sexual lives and struggles of the female workers.
Exploring the alternative sexual world created by Sri Lankas female global factory workers who engage in practicessuch as premarital sex, unmarried cohabitation, and, to a lesser extent, lesbianismthat mainstream Sinhalese Buddhist culture considers taboo, the author demonstrates that the articulations of good and bad women in relation to sexual behavior has rendered global workers sexual lives unutterable, leading to zones of silence, contradictory articulations and performances. Taking the reader into the forbidden zones of sexual discourses, choices, acts, and texts enacted and expressed in visible arenas yet remain unseen, unread or misread by onlookers, the book critically investigate how cultural, economic and political processes are implicated in the construction and expression of working class female sexualities.
An important contribution to the field of gender studies, the book addresses issues surrounding sexuality, particularly how it is shaped by global production networks as well as patriarchal nationalist projects. It is of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Studies and Gender Studies.
Sandya Hewamanne teaches Anthropology at the Department of Sociology, University of Essex, UK. Her research interests include globalization, identity, cultural politics and feminist and post-colonial theory.
Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com
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110 Popular Hindi Cinema
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113 Indias Approach to Development Cooperation
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115 Sri Lankas Global Factory Workers
(Un)Disciplined desires and sexual struggles in a post-colonial society
Sandya Hewamanne
First published 2016
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2016 Sandya Hewamanne
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hewamanne, Sandya, author.
Title: Sri Lankas global factory workers : (un) disciplined desires and
sexual struggles in a post-colonial society / Sandya Hewamanne.
Description: New York : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge
contemporary South Asia series | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016002029 | ISBN 9780415819862 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315543741 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: WomenSexual behaviorSri Lanka. | Women
EmploymentSri Lanka.
Classification: LCC HQ29 .H49 2016 | DDC 306.7082095493dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016002029
ISBN: 978-0-415-81986-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-54374-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For two women, who in their own varied ways, shaped the woman I have become:
My mother Soma Hewamanne and my aunt Nirmala Herath
Contents
The sole reason I have been able to write this book is because the Katunayake Free Trade Zone (FTZ) workers I befriended over many years allowed me entry into their public and private spaces. Their strength, skill, and creativity when negotiating unpalatable situations even while contesting dominant cultural norms have long inspired me, and made this project an uplifting exercise. I will forever be grateful for their kindness, acceptance, affection, and sympathy.
I dearly hope local and global policymakers take note of these workers predicaments and initiate policies to make exercising sexual and reproductive rights normal. As for myself, I plan to use the material in this book to push relevant policymakers to pursue programs that empower global garment workers in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, and thereby partly pay back for my long research collaboration with the islands FTZ workers.
James and Judy Brow, Kamala Visweswaran, Polly Strong, and Kamran Ali have provided intellectual inspiration, mentorship, and friendship in equal measure through the years. Without them my career trajectory would have been quite different. My friends Ritu Khanduri, Denni Blum, Jenny Huberman, Bambi Chapin, Catherine Harnoise, Robin Simon, Ana Wahl, and Steve Gunkel have also influenced my work in various positive ways. I thank them all. A special thank you to Jenny Huberman for suggesting the books provocative subheading.
My heartfelt gratitude to Anne Blackburn at Cornell Universitys South Asia Program for arranging a visiting scholar position in 2014 that provided a much needed change in intellectual climate that spurred me to finish this book. Portions of , 4, and 5 were previously published in Ethnography, Feminist Studies, Cultural Dynamics and the book Stitching Identities. I thank the publishers for granting permission to reuse this material.
And then there is Neil and Sadie: thank you for lighting up my life!
1
Global factory workers and forbidden zones
The Scent of the Lotus Pond ( Bora Diya Pokuna ), a feature film by Satyajit Maitipe, portrays the intimate lives of three Free Trade Zone (FTZ) workers. One woman, Gothami, is not conventionally beautiful and is never the first choice for a man seeking a girlfriend. She lusts after her beautiful friends boyfriend, Vipula, and has sex with him when he is drunk, sick, and sad. She gets pregnant, but Vipula thereafter reviles her and she is forced to abandon her baby at a train station. All three friends, together with others, flirt with and lead men on. Although the beautiful girl, Mangala, is able to marry her boyfriend, Vipula, she later reveals that she had an abortion when her affair with another man, while dating Vipula, resulted in pregnancy.
