Social Justice in the Globalization of Production Labor, Gender, and the Environment Nexus

by Islam, Md Saidul; Hossain, Md Ismail

• ISBN13: 9781137434005
• ISBN10: 1137434007
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-10-30
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

One of the long-lasting impacts of neoliberal globalization is to subjugate our entire society to serve the market economy, resulting in a 'critical nexus' comprised of flexible and exploitative labor conditions, the reincarnation and reinforcement of gendered ideologies in the workplace, and a treadmill of environmental destruction. Fundamental obstacles to the global and local response to this nexus include objective inequality between and within nations, subjective consequences of uneven development, and 'economism', in which solutions are framed in economic language and rules that ignore or marginalize social justice. Drawing on the social justice framework propounded by, among others, Amartya Sen, Md Saidul Islam and Md Ismail Hossain, the book unpacks this critical nexus, investigating how neoliberal flexible accumulation generates unique conditions, contradictions, and confrontations in labor, gender and environmental relations. They also examine whether and how a broader global social justice can mitigate tensions and improve conditions.

Author Biography

Md Saidul Islam is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He has worked on international development and environmental sociology focusing on, among other issues, labor, gender and the environments. His books include: Development, Power and the Environment: Neoliberal Paradox in the Age of Vulnerability (2013) and Confronting the Blue Revolution: Industrial Aquaculture and Sustainability in the Global South (2014). He won the 2015 Early Investigator Award/Prix jeune chercheur 2015 of the Canadian Sociological Association (CSA).
 
Md. Ismail Hossain is Professor of Social Work at Shahjalal University of Science & Technology (SUST), Bangladesh. He has been deeply engaged with labor and social justice issues for more than a decade, and was an 'International Visiting Scholar' at Monmouth University in the United States from September 2012 to December 2012. Currently, he is exploring the collective responsibility for ensuring labor justice at global manufacturing sites.

Table of Contents

1. Globalization of production; with Tommy Kevin
2. Labor, gender and the environment: Analytic framework
3. Globalization and labor rights: Trends and trajectories
4. Women in employment: Local dynamics, global pressures
5. Third world industrialization: Women workers between exploitation and survival
6. Migrant labor: Conditions, contradictions and confrontations; with Iris Carla De Jesus
7. Migrant labor: Conditions, contradictions and confrontations
8. Industrial disasters and implications for labor and gender; with Md Saiful Islam
9. Global treadmill of production and the environment
10. Conclusion: Social justice in the globalization of production