This dissertation examines the conventions used to frame and represent sweatshops in and to the U.S. Employing qualitative research methods this dissertation examines U.S. anti-sweatshop discourse, analyzing how the sweatshop and the sweatshop worker are made into exceptional objects of inquiry, and considers what kinds of truths and subjects are garnered from them. This dissertation argues that U.S. anti-sweatshop discourse frames sweatshops as an inherently foreign problem, and that this framing contributes to U.S. exceptionalism and savior ideology. This framing positions U.S. subjects as the primary agents of change whose relation to sweatshops is crucial to their eradication, and renders causal blame upon the racialized poor within the U.S. I argue that this framing undergirds the proliferation of new ethical markets that reproduce dislocation, dispossession, and displacement within U.S. borders via retail gentrification. Ultimately, this dissertation asks what truths are made possible through a mobilizing discourse whose foundational premise is contingent on the imagery of the sweatshop and the sweatshop worker.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/624282 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Verklan, Elizabeth, Verklan, Elizabeth |
| Contributors | Soto, Sandra, Soto, Sandra, Joseph, Miranda, Luibhéid, Eithne, Nguyen, Mimi |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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