Amount -240,000 euros
Period of time: 3 years (2020-2022)
Funding agency: IDRC (International Development Research Center) Canadian Grant Agency
Short Brief: This three year project (2020-2022) explores how women manufacturing workers can use digital platforms to share grievances and communicate directly to the top of the supply chain, allowing their voices to contribute to the governance of the future of work. The overall objective of the project is to support initiatives that use digital platforms and social media to build the collective agency of women workers at the bottom of supply chains and include them into larger conversations on working conditions and supply chain transparency. With appropriate design, platforms may be harnessed to enhance the representation of women workers, to share information, to connect and collectivize in a changing labour market. This presents opportunities for workers on platforms, as well as those in traditional workplaces to utilize technological advances to advocate for better conditions. The project will develop a scalable model for worker collectivization through digital platforms by reforming communication practices between workers at the bottom of supply chains with management at the top, and will document strategies for workers themselves to us digital platforms to build their collective agency. Working with garment workers in India and Bangladesh, researchers will document how harnessing digital platforms for collectivization will enhance the voice and representation of women workers in a digital era.
In the next 3 years Arora and Raman are planning to investigate the following:
- Ethnography of women worker grievances and strategies in Bangladesh and India
- Digital storytelling campaign that animates their personal stories (something like humans of new York campaign) and build empathy through social media engagement as well as a visualization of labor rights among these women workers themselves to help build a solidarity
- Stakeholder workshops in Hyderabad, Dhaka and Rotterdam (perhaps we can partner on this end)