Reduced ‘fates of the body’ and ‘production of value for others’ in the global garment industry: Thinking with Berlant on eating and hunger during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in early 2020, #PAYYOURWORKERS became widely circulated by trade unions and labour rights organisations campaigning for immediate support for garment workers globally. Photographed in the modest rental rooms which they both sleep and cook in, affected Cambodian garment workers held up the rallying hashtag on hand-written cardboard signs. The campaign's landing page (https://www.payyo urwor kers.org) featured one such worker and led with the message: 'Garment workers can't feed their families. Fashion brands are turning their backs'. Well known brands had contravened contractual obligations to cancel orders and withhold payments as demand for clothing in the US and Europe plummeted and raw material supply chains were severed. Between March 2020 and March 2021, it is estimated that garment workers were deprived of $11.85 billion in income (Clean Clothes Campaign, 2021). During this time, millions of workers worldwide were suspended from their positions with little or no pay and others permanently lost their jobs as factories closed (Lawreniuk, 2020). Flexibilisation, already synonymous with the global garment industry, was being intensified at speed by brand responses to the pandemic, which prioritised the profit bottom line over workers' welfare.Two-years of longitudinal research across the pandemic with the same cohort of 200 garment workers in Cambodia sought to understand and amplify their experiences of navigating its economic impacts (see www.refas hions tudy.org).

Troubling economic geography: New directions in the post‐pandemic world

“…Building on the earlier and pioneering feminist work on working bodies (McDowell, 2009(McDowell, , 2013(McDowell, , 2015, these geographers have clearly recentred labour geographies' focus on workers' embodied experiences and the future of their (precarious) work. The large UK-based ReFashion Study project on garment workers in Cambodia, led by Katherine Brickell and a group of talented early to mid-career geographers, has helped revitalise a much-needed critical approach to the 'dark sides' of economic geography (Lawreniuk, 2020) and the necessary concern of labour geographies with both work and livelihoods (Brickell et al, 2023;Brickell & Lawreniuk, 2022).…”

Doing feminist longitudinal research across the COVID‐19 crisis: Unheard impacts on researchers and garment workers in Cambodia

“…Despite Cambodia acting quickly to close national borders in 2020, and registering only 400 cases and 0 deaths in the first year of the pandemic, the sharp economic shock suffered as global markets and supply chains collapsed left workers with mounting debts and growing hunger (Brickell et al, 2022; Brickell & Lawreniuk, 2022). This early economic crisis segued into a delayed health emergency from February 2021, as COVID‐19 cases began to rise sharply.…”