Fires on the border : the passionate politics of labor organizing on the Mexican frontera / Rosemary Hennessy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hennessy, Rosemary.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Offshore assembly industry--Employees--Labor unions--Mexican-American Border Region.

Offshore assembly industry.

Labor unions--Organizing--Mexican-American Border Region.

Labor unions.

Women offshore assembly industry workers--Mexican-American Border Region.

Women offshore assembly industry workers.

Labor unions--Organizing.

Offshore assembly industry--Employees--Labor unions.

North America--Mexican-American Border Region.

Physical Description:

xxvi, 301 pages : map ; 23 cm

Other Title:

Passionate politics of labor organizing on the Mexican frontera

Politics of labor organizing on the Mexican frontera

Labor organizing on the Mexican frontera

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis, MN : University Of Minnesota Press, [2013]

Summary:

"The history of the maquiladoras has been punctuated by workers' organized resistance to abysmal working and living conditions. Over years of involvement in such movements, Rosemary Hennessy was struck by an elusive but significant feature of these struggles: the extent to which organizing is driven by attachments of affection and antagonism, belief, betrayal, and identification. What precisely is the "affective" dimension of organizing for justice? Are affects and emotions the same? And how can their value be calculated? Fires on the Border takes up these questions of labor and community organizing--its "affect-culture"--on Mexico's northern border from the early 1970s to the present day. Through these campaigns, Hennessy illuminates the attachments and identifications that motivate people to act on behalf of one another and that bind them to a common cause. The book's unsettling, even jarring, narratives bring together empirical and ethnographic accounts--of specific campaigns, the untold stories of gay and lesbian organizers, love and utopian longing--in concert with materialist theories of affect and the critical good sense of Mexican organizers. Teasing out the integration of affect-culture in economic relations and cultural processes, Hennessy provides evidence that sexuality and gender as strong affect attractors are incorporated in the harvesting of surplus labor. At the same time, workers' testimonies confirm that the capacities for bonding and affective attachment, far from being entirely at the service of capital, are at the very heart of social movements devoted to sustaining life"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

History, affect, representation: Labor organizing in Mexico's entangled economies ; The materiality of affect ; Bearing witness

Sex, labor, movement: Open secrets ; The value of a second skin ; Feeling bodies, jeans, justice ; The north-south encuentros

The utopian question: Love in the common.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780816647583

0816647585

9780816679621

0816679622

OCLC:

841495205