Political Violence, Globalization, and Transnational Activism

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This project examines the relationship between free-market policies, political violence, and new kinds of national and transnational collective worker action. Despite a large anthropological literature on globalization, there is little research on how political violence and free-market policies reshape the nature of work and collective action. This study addresses these research questions. The field research will be conducted in Colombia and the United States. The principal investigator will conduct research in the Colombian cities of Bucaramanga and Bogota, where workers experience different levels of union activism and politically motivated violence. She also will interview worker-rights activists in the United States. The principal investigator will combine a variety of anthropological research methods, such as intensive participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and life-history interviews, and she will collect archival materials to situate the project in a broader context. There are three main objectives: 1) to explore the restructuring of a sector of the labor force in Colombia over the last twenty years; 2) to investigate how workers understand these changes, as well as their shifting relationships to each other, their families, other marginalized groups, and the company; and 3) to examine how, in the context of violence and the decline of unions, some workers have crafted new kinds of national and transnational resistance. The research will foster greater understanding of how unions, together with other individuals, groups, and institutions, confront economic globalization, conceptualize social justice, and develop forms of collective action that extend beyond the work place. This has significance for broadening human rights, strengthening democracy, and promoting peace in Colombia. It is also important for understanding current debates about the social responsibility of global corporations.