Gender and Globalization: Maquila Geographies

Abstract

Gender is a useful analytical tool for understanding contemporary globalization. In this regard, geographers have examined gendered representations of globalization, gender and global production patterns, and gendered migration flows. This body of research has been crucial for developing a critical understanding of globalization. Notions of the complexity of contemporary globalization geographies allow us to imagine and construct alternative models of globalization that might be oriented toward internationalist and/or social justice concerns rather than neo-liberal principles and policies promoted by international financial institutions and their allies (Enloe 1989). In this essay, I focus on the gendered geographies of global production, an aspect of globalization that has profound consequences for those directly involved in assembly operations in the “global factory,“ or maquila. Now used in many global contexts, this term derives from maquiladora, the popular name for Mexico’s export-oriented assembly plants.