Abstract

Based on ethnographic research carried out between March and September 2014 in Foxconn's factories and in the working-class district of Ciudad Juárez (Mexico), this paper analyzes some aspects of the role of gender in globalized industrial production for export. In particular, the ethnographic analysis suggests that the symbolic and discursive practices adopted by the corporation management and by the institutional apparatus for gender equal opportunities obscure the degradation processes to which women are subjected in both labor and reproductive processes. Furthermore, research highlights how these practices aim to transform the subjectivity of the workforce by bending it to the needs of global businesses and the patriarchal system. Finally, the analysis of the empirical material highlights how the female workers themselves, through direct and symbolic action, counteract this process of degradation.