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Journal article

Global processes and local lives: Guatemalan women's work and gender relations at home and abroad

Date

2006

Authors

Cecilia Menjívar

Abstract

In this paper I address an important aspect of the link between the larger process of globalization and work. I focus on how globalization has affected the lives of Guatemalan women of different class backgrounds and ethnicities in Guatemala and in Los Angeles, through an examination of the link between paid work and household work. Data for this article come from eighty-six in-depth interviews with indigenous and ladina women and from ethnographic field work I conducted in Los Angeles and in two regions of Guatemala. There are certain aspects of earning an income among the women in this study that emerge in both contexts, perhaps due to the demands of contemporary capitalism on workers around the world. My observations indicate that whereas the experiences of women and femininities are played out in the context of global economic relations, they are experienced differently in diverse sites and within the same context by individuals of different class and ethnic backgrounds. Thus, experiences of globalization through work are very much localized; they are historically and culturally situated and interact with broader processes in dissimilar fashion.

Journal title

International Labor and Working-Class History

Volume

70

Links

Economic sectors

General relevance - all sectors

Target groups

Researchers

Geographical focuses

Guatemala and International Organizations

Spheres of activity

Economics and Gender and sexuality studies

Languages

English