BEYOND THE FIRM - RESTRUCTURING GENDER DIVISIONS OF LABOR IN QUITOS GARMENT INDUSTRY UNDER AUSTERITY

In this study I investigate social adjustments emerging under neoliber al austerity policies in Ecuador. In particular, I focus on the proces ses of informalization and feminization of garment manufacture as Ecua dorian producers attempt to remain viable in a radically opened econom y. A central premise of this study is that gendered labor supplies in places are significant to the form that industry restructuring assumes . The analysis draws on extensive fieldwork and builds a political eco nomy of industrial development, debt crisis, and austerity to uncover those forces which have combined in place to restructure gender divisi ons of labor in paid work and households in the early 1990s. This is c oupled with analysis of in-depth interviews with women informal garmen t workers in order to understand the diverse constructions of informal work, gender divisions of labor, and daily life that are emerging und er austerity. This involves an examination of the ways in which gender roles and relations are being reworked for these women and their fami lies through informal wage-earning activity. This moves the analysis b eyond representations of women as uniformly subordinated by industrial capitalism and towards an appreciation of the mutual reworkings of em ployment relations and gender identities.