Carla Freeman ?-Present

## Quotes:

“One goal of feminist ethnography has been to bring women's lives and voices into closer conversation with the theoretical tools we use to analyze human experience”  (Enduring Traditions and New Directions in Feminist Ethnography in the Caribbean and Latin America, pg. 442)

“Feminist ethnography, then, if it is to work toward an ethical enterprise (suspending, perhaps, the prospect of eliminating the very differences that are the essence of anthropological pursuit itself) involves at least a commitment to recognizing and representing inequality and difference. It further involves recognizing the necessity of understanding not only women's circumstances but also the "logic" through which women interpret these circumstances and give them social meanings. Finally, it involves listening to critiques offered-from our research subjects, from local scholars as well as from competing perspectives within our familiar academic homes, and making the attempt to incorporate these insights into our work.” (Enduring Traditions and New Directions in Feminist Ethnography in the Caribbean and Latin America, pg. 433)

## Bibliography and History:

In 1993 Carla Freeman graduated from Temple University with her Ph.D in Anthropology, having previously obtained an BA in Anthropology in 1983 from Bryn Mawr College.

Currently, she serves as a professor and Senior Associate Dean for the Faculty of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where she is also connected to both their Department of Anthropology, and the Department of Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She has spent three years conducting field work in Barbados, and her work has focused in that general part of the world. The Association for Feminist Anthropology (a subsection of the American Anthropological Association) has had her serve as President Elect, although currently their section of the AAA appears to have been removed. In addition to her own writings and publications, she edits *Issues of Globalization* for Oxford Press.

## Work:

Carla Freeman is an anthropologist who focuses mainly on gender issues, with a specialization in Latin American and Caribbean studies. Because of this it is evident why a lot of her work pertains to these geographical regions. Of all her works she has published three books; *Entrepreneurial Selves, Global Middle Classes*, and *High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy*. Aside from these works she has also published nine papers, which have been published in journals such as *American Ethnologist, Feminist Studies, and Cultural Anthropology*. Her published works focus on economics, gendered division of labour, globalization, and identity.

The most recent work Carla Freeman has been focused on has been a book titled: Entrepreneurship and the *Making of a Caribbean Middle Class: Creole Respectability in a Neoliberal Age*. From her extensive work discussing cultural implications of class and economics, we can see how Marx has influenced her. Using Marx’s critiques of the capitalist system, Freeman uses his theories to analyze modern economic issues while including the discussion of gender inequality. Discussing gender issues within Marx’s theories allows her to broaden the scope of political economy. This can be seen in her book, *High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy*, where Freeman uses the classic theories of Marx and Weber to outline the basis of her arguments and to demonstrate the social inequalities present within the economic situation in Barbados. Through her critiques and discussions about the capitalist system and modes of production, we can see how she takes influence from some of the great thinkers of anthropology and utilizes them to critique modern issues.

## Influences:

Carla Freeman is foremost a feminist and an anthropologist, as a result, she is informed by those thinkers who have come to establish the basis for both of these schools of thought. Freeman cites her ideological foundation as being established within the works of Marx & Engels, Foucault, Appadurai, and David Harvey. From Foucault, she draws on ideas about discipline and power. From Marx & Engels’ *Communist Manifesto* she develops for herself  a context with which to decode cultural phenomena. Furthermore, the ideas explored in her work are heavily inspired by the foremothers of feminist anthropology, such as Ester Boserup. Boserup focused on the phenomena of “women and development” and precipitated analysis about how economic change is linked to the socio-cultural position of women.(Enduring Traditions, pg. 428)  Additionally, Freeman’s work is influenced by “Third world Feminists” who have introduced into the field a representative voice for greater reflexivity and the greater recognition of the agency of those groups being studied in the face of anthropology’s colonialist tendencies. (Enduring Traditions, pg. 428-30)

Freeman is also influenced by authors like Aihwa Ong and Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, who she credits with being the first individuals to expose her to the gendered reading of anthropology, social theory, and political theory. This is a way of interpretation which has completely driven the trajectory of her work.

Through her work Freeman has become a major player in the field in modern day anthropology and has especially exerted influence over contemporary feminist political economists.

## Analysis:

Carla Freeman has touched many facets of gender issues and is notably known for her analysis on ‘’Transnationalization’’ and the way globalization affects gendered subjectivities. She has come up with the concept of ‘’pink collar’’, in reference to the increasing feminine work force, and deepened her study on the feminization of the informatics sector and jobs in the Caribbean. Her book ‘*High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy: Women, Work, and Pink-collar Identities in the Caribbean*.’(2000) explores this phenomena, as well as analyses the true contribution of transnationals in the development of third world countries. Through her studies, Freeman demonstrated the inevitable exchange of values and culture that occurs between foreign employers and local workers, which she believes has influenced an important transformation in the identity of feminine workers in the Caribbean. Moreover, her work also examines how there has been a reciprocity in terms of adaptation and influence towards foreign employers. By analyzing the implication of gender on globalization, Freeman wishes to demonstrate the importance of considering gender implication within the study of globalization and examine the role of local actors versus global actors in determining the development of capitalism in third world nations.

Furthermore, some of her work has also focused on the concept of flexibility and draws comparison between what she refers to as ‘’reputational flexibility’’ and ‘’Neoliberal flexibility’’. The first term is associated to a set of values that she believes are specifically related to the Caribbean culture and the second appeals to global capitalist views. According to her, flexibility takes center stage in the Neoliberal agenda, and encompass different aspects, which have been noticeable when looking at the transformation of the middle-class entrepreneurs in Barbados. Indeed, Freeman has spent a lot of time analyzing the determinants of Bajan women’s satisfaction
in terms of working conditions, and demonstrated how the influence of image and reputation may have carry them into the acceptance of a camouflaged factory
equivalent labor.

## Critique:

Feminist Anthropology, Political Economy, and the emerging research into the effects of globalization all begin to intersect around the time that Freeman studies and begins to write. Her work emerges as an expansion of existing ideas, particularly into the gendered aspects of globalization in a capitalist structure.

In looking at the intersection of class, gender, and their place in the global economy, Freeman relies on the categorization of the workers and their dedication to epitomizing their label as data center workers so as to be able to define them as a specific group and to contrast them with their working-class male counterparts. This is one of the two approaches to the study of intersectionality critiqued by McCall, who posits that methodology affects the knowledge acquired, and therefore has proposed a new approach focusing on the relationships between categories while understanding them to be changing, imperfect, and inherently unequal.

Feeling like Freeman, (among many cultural studies writers,) ignores the larger external factors affecting the subjects of her research, Robinson takes issue with her lack of depth in referencing the critiques of global capitalist structures that she assumes as background for her writing, and her reading of agency in the actions of the data entry workers in regards to their dress and requirements for “professional” deportment discussed in *High Tech and High Heels*.

## SOURCES:

 ***American Anthropological Association.* American Anthropological Association, 2015. Web. 16 Oct. 2015**

Freeman, Carla. "Designing Women: Corporate Discipline and Barbados's Off-Shore Pink-Collar Sector." Cultural Anthropology 8.2 (1993): Pp. 169-186. Jtstor. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.

“Carla Freeman.” *Emory College of Arts and Sciences.* Emory University, 2015. Web.  16 Oct. 2015.

"Carla Freeman Emory University." Academia. Web. 16 Oct. 2015. <http://emory.academia.edu/CarlaFreeman/Books>.

Freeman, Carla. *High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy: Women, Work, and Pink-collar Identities in the Caribbean.* Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2000. Web.

Freeman, C. (2001). Is Local: Global as Feminine: Masculine? Rethinking the Gender of Globalization. University of Chicago Press, 26(24), Pp.1007-1037. JSTOR. Web. 16 Oct. 2015

Freeman, C. (n.d.). The ''reputation'' of Neoliberalism. Wiley, 34(2), Pp. 252-267. Retrieved May 1, 2007.

"Freeman, Carla." *Work and Family Researchers Network.* Web. 16 Oct. 2015.

Freeman, C., Murdock, D. "Enduring Traditions and New Directions in Feminist Ethnography in the Caribbean and Latin America." *Feminist Studies* 27.2 (2001): Print.

McCall, Leslie. “The Complexity of Intersectionality.” *Signs*, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Spring 2005), pp. 1771-1800. JSTOR. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.

McGee, R. Jon, and Richard L. Warms. *Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia.* SAGE. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.

Robinson, Lillian S. “Workers of the Brave New World.” *The Women's Review of Books*, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Nov., 2000), pp. 19-21. JSTOR. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.

Silverstein, Sydney. "Anthroportraits: Carla Freeman." *Materials of Anthropology.* Self-Published, 19 Aug. 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.