Global in the Villages: Politics of Contentment

When Hasini said this, she was showing me her workshop, which was thatched with coconut fronds and had been built between her kitchen and the home’s boundary walls. Although it was a temporary hut, it contained Hasini’s most prized possessions—four industrial sewing machines she had purchased using savings from her Free Trade Zone (FTZ) work. These machines made a tangible difference between her time as a global factory worker and her life as a local entrepreneur or, as she once put it, “village factory owner.” Merely owning sewing machines is not enough to become a successful entrepreneur; one also