Abstract
This chapter is based on reflections arising from research on women factory workers over a number of years.2 The issues and questions in each phase of research changed as our own understanding grew, along with changes in the general political and economic environment. In spite of variations in research objectives, there were certain common themes concerning the ways in which women were perceived and their self-perception as workers, and as women, the possibilities and the limits to organising, the differences between the interests of women and men workers as well as the differences between women workers themselves. These issues are explored in this chapter. The chapter is divided into three sections. In the first section we discuss the theoretical implications of the relationship between identity, consciousness and strategies. In the next section we raise issues concerning strategies and organising/lack of organising on the basis of two case studies of women factory workers in electronics and electrical equipment factories in India and Nigeria.3 The final section looks at existing struggles within the theoretical perspective elaborated earlier.
We should like to thank workshop participants and colleagues in the Social Movements Seminar for their comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. Special thanks to Wicky Meynen, Peter Waterman, Virginia Vargas and Nira Yuval-Davis.
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© 1996 Amrita Chhachhi and Renée Pittin
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Chhachhi, A., Pittin, R. (1996). Multiple Identities, Multiple Strategies. In: Chhachhi, A., Pittin, R. (eds) Confronting State, Capital and Patriarchy. Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24450-8_4
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