Gender and labor mobility: Bolivian female workers in the garment industry of Sao Paulo

Author(s)

Clara Lemme Ribeiro

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2018-12-17

Examining board members

Heinz Dieter Heidemann; Amelia Luisa Damiani; Ana Carolina Gonçalves Leite; Bruno Felipe de Souza e Miranda

• Advisor: Heinz Dieter Heidemann

Abstract

The Bolivian migratory process to São Paulo related to garment industry sweatshops begun in the early 1990s, with a wide participation of women working as seamstresses alongside the men. The aim of this text is to characterize labor relations in the sweatshops, regarding the conditions that formed this migration, as well as to characterize the particular insertion of women in the sweatshops and their role in the migratory process. The research included in-depth interviews with Bolivian sweatshop workers and fieldwork in São Paulo, Buenos Aires, La Paz and El Alto. As the sweatshops also offer housing to the migrants, domestic and familiar reproduction is a fundamental dimension of the sweatshops and the migratory process as a whole, as well as the labor. Women are mainly responsible for cooking and cleaning activities, while they are contradictory inserted in the labor sphere. The Bolivian migration to São Paulo is supported by particular arrangements of labor and reproduction. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/16841-0 - Gender and labor mobility: Bolivian feminine workers in the garment industry in São Paulo
• Grantee: Clara Lemme Ribeiro
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master