Login | Register

Seam Stress: Garment Work and Gendered Labour Struggle in 1980s Montreal

Title:

Seam Stress: Garment Work and Gendered Labour Struggle in 1980s Montreal

Siaw, Leona (2020) Seam Stress: Garment Work and Gendered Labour Struggle in 1980s Montreal. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

[thumbnail of Siaw_MASc_S2020.pdf]
Preview
Text (application/pdf)
Siaw_MASc_S2020.pdf - Accepted Version
334kB
[thumbnail of Seam Stress (Leona Siaw, 2020).pdf]
Preview
Text (application/pdf)
Seam Stress (Leona Siaw, 2020).pdf - Accepted Version
66MB

Abstract

Montreal’s garment industry was the largest in Canada until most of its factories closed or relocated in the 1980s and 1990s, but it did not go out quietly. Staring down the barrel of rapid, state-sanctioned deindustrialization, 9,500 members of the Quebec ILGWU, most of them immigrant women, launched an industry-wide strike in August of 1983, the first in 43 years, as well as the last. Using the strike as a springboard, this thesis combines oral history interviews and archival material with historical, geographical, and feminist literatures to understand how women workers experienced and contested garment deindustrialization in 1980s Montreal. The result is a graphic novel about garment work and feminist labour struggle, for public consumption. This thesis adds much-needed female perspective to a growing body of work around deindustrialization and its contestation within history and geography. Conceptually and politically, it seeks to recast the Mile End and Mile-Ex as a site of feminist, working-class struggle, placing gentrification in conversation with deindustrialization while offering a primer on place-based labour organizing during a time of unprecedented capital mobility.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Geography, Planning and Environment
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Siaw, Leona
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M. Sc.
Program:Geography, Urban & Environmental Studies
Date:30 July 2020
Thesis Supervisor(s):Rutland, Ted
ID Code:987333
Deposited By: Annest Yoshe Leona Siaw
Deposited On:25 Nov 2020 16:48
Last Modified:25 Nov 2020 16:48
All items in Spectrum are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. The use of items is governed by Spectrum's terms of access.

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Downloads per month over past year

Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
- Research related to the current document (at the CORE website)
Back to top Back to top