Money makes us relatives : women's labor in urban Turkey / Jenny B. White.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

White, Jenny B. (Jenny Barbara), 1953-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Employment--Turkey--Istanbul.

Women.

Rural-urban migration--Turkey--Istanbul.

Rural-urban migration.

Households--Turkey--Istanbul.

Households.

Home labor--Turkey--Istanbul.

Home labor.

Piecework--Turkey--Istanbul.

Piecework.

Women--Turkey--Istanbul--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xviii, 176 p. ) ill.

Edition:

2nd ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2004.

Summary:

'Money Makes Us Relatives' asks why Turkish society devalues women's work, concealing its existence while creating a vast pool of cheap labour for the world market. Jenny White shows how women's paid work is regarded in terms of kinship obligation & thus an extension of domestic work for the family.

In the rural immigrant community of Istanbul, poor women spend up to fifty hours a week producing goods for export, yet deny that they actually 'work'. Money Makes Us Relatives asks why Turkish society devalues women's work, concealing its existence while creating a vast pool of cheap labor for the world market. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork among family producers and pieceworkers, and using fascinating case studies throughout, Jenny B. White shows how women's paid work is viewed in terms of kinship relations of reciprocity and obligation - an extension of domestic work for the family, which is culturally valued but poorly compensated. Whilst offering the benefits of social identity and long-term security, women's work also reflects global capitalism's ability to capture local cultural norms, and to use these to lower production costs and create exploitative conditions. This fully revised second edition includes a new introduction and conclusion, updated references, comparative material on women's labor elsewhere in the world, and brand new material on Islam, globalization, gender and Turkish family life. It is an important contribution to debates about women's participation in late global capitalism. In the rural immigrant community of Istanbul, poor women spend up to fifty hours a week producing goods for export, yet deny that they actually 'work'. Money Makes Us Relatives asks why Turkish society devalues women's work, concealing its existence while creating a vast pool of cheap labor for the world market. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork among family producers and pieceworkers, and using fascinating case studies throughout, Jenny B. White shows how women's paid work is viewed in terms of kinship relations of reciprocity and obligation - an extension of domestic work for the family, which is culturally valued but poorly compensated. Whilst offering the benefits of social identity and long-term security, women's work also reflects global capitalism's ability to capture local cultural norms, and to use these to lower production costs and create exploitative conditions. This fully revised second edition includes a new introduction and conclusion, updated references, comparative material on women's labor elsewhere in the world, and brand new material on Islam, globalization, gender and Turkish family life. It is an important contribution to debates about women's participation in late global capitalism.

Contents:

Women and the global workforce

The Turkish case

Bridge between Europe and Asia

Marriage : the house of the world

The patriarch

Mothers and sons

The social web

Money makes us relatives

The life cycle of an atelier : Yenikent

Kinship and production.

Notes:

Previous ed.: Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 1994.

Formerly CIP.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 168-172) and index.

ISBN:

1-280-05244-9

0-203-24042-1

1-134-35808-3

0-415-32664-8

1-283-84728-0

1-134-35809-1

9780203240427

OCLC:

808026728