Crafting social change: former global factory workers negotiating new identities in Sri Lanka’s villages

Abstract

These village people, they can be nice when they want to, but can turn vicious at any moment. I tread carefully here, at least until I have two, three children and a good economic foundation. Trying in-your-face FTZ mod in these backward villages will not bring us any power. I try to get my way by putting on the sil redde. Shanika, a former Free Trade Zone (FTZ) worker now residing in her marital home, said this with a laugh. Sil redde is the white shawl worn when observing Buddhist disciplinary principles on poya days. Shanika's comment is interesting at two levels: because as per early nationalist discourses, white signifies purity (De Alwis 1997); and because Shanika was deftly combining this notion with a Buddhist accoutrement (the sil redde) to perform discipline. While all newly married women devise strategies to endear themselves to in-laws, Sri Lanka's former FTZ workers find doing so more challenging given the stigma attached to their prior employment. Many rural households have daughters or nieces who worked in the FTZs and relatives generally claim these women did so to help their families survive economically. I got quite used to hearing people say their daughter 'was not like all those other garment girls who behave without any shame-fear.' However, almost all mothers had qualms about their sons marrying a FTZ worker. This article explores how former garment factory workers negotiate new lives and identities after 5-6 years of employment in an urban Free Trade Zone. Most marry a year or two after leaving the FTZ and move to their husbands' villages. Based on ethnographic research

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