Invisible bondage: Mobility and compulsion within Sri Lanka’s global assembly line production

Abstract

Female workers who enter factory work in Sri Lanka’s Free Trade Zones (FTZs) via contractors are not forced to join or remain in contractor labor pools. This paper, however, argues that such workers nevertheless remain unfree due to cultural and emotional bonds that restrict labor mobility. By analyzing how contracted workers’ entry and mobility within work get shaped by a coalition of patriarchal agents—parents, contractors and factory management—the paper demonstrates how compulsive emotional conditions, that I term “invisible bondage,” are produced and maintained. While the degree of compulsion varies depending on the particular form of labor contracting (i.e., Tamil women from the war torn areas recruited by military personnel, or daily hired workers), I show that all labor contracting for global production represent how forms of unfreedoms are interwoven into supposedly free market relations of production. Such invisible controls, I argue, are essential for neoliberal capitalism to thrive.