Introduction

I return to the poem by Anu with which I started this book. I use the lines with which she ends her poem to reconsider the Sri Lankan apparel sector and its successes. Anu reminds us that factories run on the courage of labouring workers, emphasizing another dimension to labour agency: courage. The end of her composition, however, takes us from the factory to a different level, that of the nation; she praises the workers’ contribution to the land. In her subtle way, she promotes the value creation that toiling labourers bring to two different levels, accentuating how their courage helps both the firm and the country earn hard currency. Unstated is the point that this appreciation of sweating workers does not take material form; in other words, they are not adequately remunerated and yet they are recognized. How did labourers come to be in this place? The two ends of my research trajectory may make some sense of this.

I started my research at the onset of a global recession; ironically, my writing of this concluding chapter coincides with the CoVID-19 global pandemic. Although at the time of writing it is early days in the pandemic (March–April 2020), the prognosis for the world economy is dire, with ripples in livelihoods in places far away from the current epicentres of the plague (Europe and the USA). I draw attention to the effects on theglobal garment industry, where reports of leading retailers cancelling orders from countries, such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, abound (Hossain 2020; Kelly 2020a, 2020b; Hoskins 2020, 2021). These accounts alert us to the large-scale cutbacks and the struggles of local activists to ensure some degree of protection and severance for redundant workers. With retail therapy adrift, many major brands have walked away from their contractual obligations. This has meant the closure of local factories or employers’ inability or unwillingness to pay workers, potentially creating the prospect of mass unemployment. While labourers seek justice, retailers blame the markets and local manufacturers highlight their exposure to the vagaries of global markets.