Aim The purpose of this empirical study was to understand, explore and analyse how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the mothers of our society, with particular emphasis on Bangladesh, which has so far been a relatively unexplored area. Subject and methods The study adopted qualitative and interpretative methods of social research, including content analysis and a perception study of 223 respondents through a semi-structured questionnaire survey, who were selected using purposive random sampling. The data obtained from the perception study was further complemented through phone interviews. Results The study found that the pandemic has not affected all mothers uniformly; rather, the intensity of its impact varied depending on factors such as the occupation of mothers and their husbands and their family pattern. Despite such variation, all mothers experienced a subsequent increase in workload, challenges while availing routine health facilities and higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression and certain behavioural changes. Conclusion However, the worst affected have been the mothers belonging to the lower socioeconomic strata because the pandemic has made them and their husbands jobless, leading them towards an uncertain future.

This article focuses on agency and citizenship from the point of view of Bangladeshi immigrant women who have been living in UK for the last two generations. They have a transnational identity, living between two cultures, which often have contradictory elements. On the one hand, these women identify themselves as British citizens: a status which provides them with some liberal rights. On the other hand, they practise Bangladeshi culture at home, which often entails patriarchal elements. At the junction of these two identities, religion (Islam) works as a guiding principle, and as a uniting tool in their personal as well as public lives. The present article challenges the notions that immigrant women shaped by Bangladeshi culture are victims of patriarchal ideologies, and that Bangladeshi culture hinders women from development. It rather suggests that it is not Bangladeshi culture or religion that hinders women from exercising agency, but their identity as immigrants.

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Aim: The purpose of this empirical study is to explore how Covid-19 pandemic has hit the mothers of our society, with particular emphasis on Bangladesh. The study also attempts to make their unheard voice reach both the national and international academic discourse which has so far been an unexcavated area. Subject and Methods: The study adopted qualitative and interpretative methods of social research which include content analysis; perception study of 223 respondents through semi structured questionnaire survey, who were selected using purposive random sampling. The data obtained from perception study was further complemented through phone in interviews. Results: The study has found that pandemic has not affected all the mothers uniformly, rather the intensity of its impact varied depending on factors like occupation of mothers and their husbands and their family pattern. Despite such variation, all the mothers experienced subsequent increase in workload, challenges while availing routine health facilities and higher level of stress, anxiety, depression, and certain behavioral changes. Conclusion: However, the worst affected have been the mothers belonging to the lower socio-economic strata because the pandemic has made them and their husbands’ jobless, leading them towards an uncertain future.

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The chapter critically analyses the discourses on global factory workers that rest on three assumptions. First, the discussions of production are centred on stories of victimhood and produce a homogeneous image of third world workers as cheap and docile, who are affected by global labour market dynamics similarly and equally. Second, the third world is always theorised as a site of production and women factory workers are always positioned as sweatshop workers and never as consumers. Third, women's role as consumers appears only in relation to white women from the global north, who are assumed to have more purchasing power. Third world workers' consumption practices have been largely overlooked. The chapter problematises some of these assumptions. It proposes to look at the gender dynamics in the lives of women workers in global garment factories with a focus on their clothing consumption in order to further an approach that acknowledges the heterogeneity and agency of garment workers.

The chapter critically analyses the discourses on global factory workers that rest on three assumptions. First, the discussions of production are centred on stories of victimhood and produce a homogeneous image of third world workers as cheap and docile, who are affected by global labour market dynamics similarly and equally. Second, the third world is always theorised as a site of production and women factory workers are always positioned as sweatshop workers and never as consumers. Third, women's role as consumers appears only in relation to white women from the global north, who are assumed to have more purchasing power. Third world workers' consumption practices have been largely overlooked. The chapter problematises some of these assumptions. It proposes to look at the gender dynamics in the lives of women workers in global garment factories with a focus on their clothing consumption in order to further an approach that acknowledges the heterogeneity and agency of garment workers.

The chapter critically analyses the discourses on global factory workers that rest on three assumptions. First, the discussions of production are centred on stories of victimhood and produce a homogeneous image of third world workers as cheap and docile, who are affected by global labour market dynamics similarly and equally. Second, the third world is always theorised as a site of production and women factory workers are always positioned as sweatshop workers and never as consumers. Third, women's role as consumers appears only in relation to white women from the global north, who are assumed to have more purchasing power. Third world workers' consumption practices have been largely overlooked. The chapter problematises some of these assumptions. It proposes to look at the gender dynamics in the lives of women workers in global garment factories with a focus on their clothing consumption in order to further an approach that acknowledges the heterogeneity and agency of garment workers.