IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v56y2024i7p1881-1896.html

Precarious labour and social reproduction in Bolivian immigrant sweatshops in São Paulo, Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Clara Lemme Ribeiro

Abstract

This paper analyses labour and social reproduction conditions in Bolivian immigrant garment industry sweatshops in São Paulo, Brazil. The analysis contributes to an understanding of the ways in which precarious labour is articulated with a simultaneous precarization of social reproduction. Working conditions in Bolivian immigrant sweatshops include 14-hour or longer workdays, piece-work, low wages and unsafe working environments. Based on the life stories of three Bolivian women migrants in São Paulo, I spotlight the gender-based arrangements of paid work and reproduction upon which the sweatshops are predicated and further detail the reproductive conditions within these sweatshops, which tend to be uncomfortable, unsafe and unhealthy for workers as well as owners. These arrangements blur the dividing lines between the home and the workplace, as well as the distinctions between paid labour and social reproduction. Through this empirical work, I argue that social reproduction can make labour more precarious in contexts such as this one. I further contend that the crisis of social reproduction in peripheric countries extends beyond the retreat of the welfare state, rather constituting a generalized precarization of reproductive conditions that both supports and is supported by extremely precarized labour.

Suggested Citation

  • Clara Lemme Ribeiro, 2024. "Precarious labour and social reproduction in Bolivian immigrant sweatshops in São Paulo, Brazil," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(7), pages 1881-1896, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:56:y:2024:i:7:p:1881-1896
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X241254812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X241254812
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X241254812?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emily Reid-Musson & Daniel Cockayne & Lia Frederiksen & Nancy Worth, 2020. "Feminist economic geography and the future of work," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(7), pages 1457-1468, October.
    2. Sirisha C. Naidu, 2023. "Circuits of Social Reproduction: Nature, Labor, and Capitalism," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 55(1), pages 93-111, March.
    3. Alessandra Mezzadri & Susan Newman & Sara Stevano, 2022. "Feminist global political economies of work and social reproduction," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(6), pages 1783-1803, November.
    4. Mezzadri,Alessandra, 2017. "The Sweatshop Regime," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107116962, August.
    5. Alessandra Mezzadri, 2016. "Class, gender and the sweatshop: on the nexus between labour commodification and exploitation," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(10), pages 1877-1900, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alessandra Mezzadri & Kaustav Banerjee, 2021. "The afterlife of industrial work: Urban-to-rural labour transitions from the factory to the informal economy," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-158, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Prathiwi Widyatmi Putri, 2024. "The political: A view from Jakarta’s kampungs," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(3), pages 979-987, May.
    3. Thomas Chambers & Ayesha Ansari, 2018. "Ghar Mein KÄ m Hai (There is Work in the House)," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 141-163, August.
    4. Aris Martinelli, 2022. "Collectivism, individualism and solidarity in global value chain restructuring in the Global North: Workers’ resistance in the Swiss machinery industry," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(3), pages 1391-1419, August.
    5. Abiola Oyeboade Ayodeji & Andrew Ainslie & Uma Kambhampati, 2025. "Beyond Empowerment: Gendered Labour and Social Reproduction in Rural Nigeria," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 68(3), pages 241-258, December.
    6. Mark ANNER, 2019. "Predatory purchasing practices in global apparel supply chains and the employment relations squeeze in the Indian garment export industry," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 158(4), pages 705-727, December.
    7. Srishti Yadav, 2025. "Capitalism, Competition and Class Conflicts: A Pedagogical Introduction to Marxist Political Economy," Review of Development and Change, , vol. 30(1_suppl), pages 103-118, May.
    8. Katharina Grüneisl, 2024. "Becoming ‘farazat’: Re-examining feminisation from a Tunis used clothes sorting factory," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(3), pages 736-750, May.
    9. Jihye Kim & Wendy Olsen & Arkadiusz Wiśniowski, 2023. "Predicting Child-Labour Risks by Norms in India," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(6), pages 1605-1626, December.
    10. Danish Khan & June Sanchez, 2025. "Threshold Concepts in Economics: A New Way to Teach the Role of Government in the Economy," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 57(3), pages 376-385, September.
    11. Shalini Grover & Thomas Chambers & Patricia Jeffery, 2018. "Portraits of Women’s Paid Domestic-Care Labour," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 123-140, August.
    12. Mark ANNER, 2022. "Power relations in global supply chains and the unequal distribution of costs during crises: Abandoning garment suppliers and workers during the COVID‐19 pandemic," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 161(1), pages 59-82, March.
    13. Hanrieder, Tine, 2025. "Repair work in raced welfare capitalism: community health workers in the United States," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 126955, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Kanchana N. Ruwanpura, 2023. "Book review: Sandya Hewamanne, Restitching Identities in Rural Sri Lanka: Gender, Neoliberalism, and the Politics of Contentment," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 23(1), pages 106-108, January.
    15. Ronaldo Munck, 2020. "Work and Capitalist Globalization: Beyond Dualist Reason," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 371-386, September.
    16. Gayatri Nair, 2023. "The Political Economy of Gig Work in the Pandemic: Social Hierarchies and Labour Control of Indian Platform Workers," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 18(3), pages 409-430, December.
    17. Madhumita Dutta, 2020. "Workplace, emotional bonds and agency: Everyday gendered experiences of work in an export processing zone in Tamil Nadu, India," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(7), pages 1357-1374, October.
    18. Noronha, Ernesto & D'Cruz, Premilla & Shukla, Anurag, 2026. "The garment sector and the pandemic: Understanding the impact on workers in India," IPE Working Papers 266/2026, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    19. Genevieve LeBaron, 2021. "The Role of Supply Chains in the Global Business of Forced Labour," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 57(2), pages 29-42, April.
    20. Tatiana López, 2021. "A practice ontology approach to labor control regimes in GPNs: Connecting ‘sites of labor control’ in the Bangalore export garment cluster," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1012-1030, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:56:y:2024:i:7:p:1881-1896. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.