Direniş ve örgütlenme stratejileri: Kadın işçilerin yoğunlukta olduğu iki tekstil fabrikasının karşılaştırmalı analizi

This study is based on fieldwork conducted in two female-dominated textile factories located in Izmir, Turkey. These factories are similar in many aspects: size of the enterprise, composition of the workforce, technical division of labor, export orientation, annual revenue, location and working conditions. The only apparent difference is that one has recently developed resistance through collective mobilization while the other has not displayed any visible acts of resistance yet. In an effort to explore the processes leading to this difference, my main question is how and why different resistance patterns emerge among women working in similar workplace settings. This question is particularly important in understanding the diversity and contradictions in women?s experiences of resistance, with a comparative framework and revisiting the links between female labor and neoliberal restructuring. I make two arguments: First, I argue that absence or presence of managerial discourse of family, and the relations based on gender, kinship, ethnicity, and neighborhood may have contradictory roles in the emergence or non-emergence of collective resistance. The contradiction is that what becomes an obstacle for one group of workers emerges as a resource for the other group. Second, I explore the links between worker dependence and increased debt for the low-income groups and argue that workers `different perceptions of fairness in their working conditions can both allow or diminish the emergence of collective action. This discussion draws on a three-level analysis that consists of workers? particular experiences, wage structure in the textile industry, and the recent political economic context marked by financialization and neoliberal populism. Therefore, this study incorporates as well as contributes to a variety of literatures which include worker mobilization, organization and workplace studies, social movements, and feminist political economy. Keywords: worker resistance, worker mobilization, neoliberalism, gender, kinship, ethnicity, family discourse, cynicism, household debt, financialization, neoliberal populism