LE3 .A278 2010

2009

Brickner, Rachel

Acadia University

Master of Arts

Masters

Political Science

Politics

The capability approach, developed by Amartya Sen, and later adapted by Martha Nussbaum, is a popular approach to understanding "development." This thesis analyzes women workers in Mexico's maquiladoras through Nussbaum's capabilities approach to explore the ways they are able to expand and improve their existing capability, even under the exploitative working conditions of global export factories. This thesis argues that women's lives cannot be evaluated using dichotomous categorizations such, functioning in a "truly human" way or not, as implied by Nussbaum's capabilities approach, or exploited/ empowered, as argued in much of the maquiladora literature. Instead, this thesis presents a more nuanced depiction of women's working lives by constructing a typology of the ways that women workers can be seen to be both informally and formally resisting and maneuvering to exercise and improve their capability even under the most exploitative conditions of the maquiladoras.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:3326