Fast Fashion and Racial Capitalism: Power and Vulnerability in the Global Supply Chains of Gender and Migrant Work

Presented by the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America

This panel explores themes of power and vulnerability in the global supply chain of garments manufactured in the South and Southeast Asian garment industry. It invites scholars of migration, labor, and transnational South/East Asian studies to think through the different points of power and protest in this vast global supply chain. In the session, we invite speakers to complicate the variegated supply chain that separates consumers, global brands, civil society organizations, and migrant workers in factories to think through how to connect these disparate modes of production. The panel will highlight the particular types of racial and ethnic vulnerability caused by the COVID-19 pandemic for migrant workers in the South/East Asian garment industry, and draw these lessons into a historical genealogy of military imperialism and colonialism, as well as thinking about the global supply chain as a potent frontier of racial capitalism.

Featuring:

  • Dina Siddiqi, Clinical Associate Professor, Faculty of Liberal Studies, New York University
  • Minh-Hà T. Phạm, Associate Professor, Graduate Program in Media Studies, Pratt Institute
  • Jennifer (JJ) Rosenbaum, Executive Director, Global Labor Justice

Moderator:
Elena Shih, 
Manning Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies, and Faculty Affiliate in the Departments of Sociology, East Asian Studies, and Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University

Please register to attend.