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Flexible Lives On Engineering's 'Bleeding Edge' : Gender, Migration And Belonging In The Semiconductor Industry, Sarah E. Appelhans May 2021

Flexible Lives On Engineering's 'Bleeding Edge' : Gender, Migration And Belonging In The Semiconductor Industry, Sarah E. Appelhans

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation explores gender, flexibilization, and belonging within professional high tech employment, particularly amongst women and migrant engineers. Prior studies of women in the “integrated circuit” focused on low-skilled factory labor (Nakamura 2014, Grossman 1980); however, women are increasingly choosing careers in the male-dominated engineering workforce, which designs and manufactures semiconductor technology. Fieldwork for this dissertation took place between May 2018 – Aug 2019 in the Northeastern US, a regional hub for semiconductor manufacturing companies. Thirty-eight life history interviews were conducted with participants from several companies in the area, along with frequent follow ups and participant observation with seventeen engineering …


Fighting For Protections : Challenging The 21st Century Sweatshop In New York State, Jacqueline Hayes Jan 2017

Fighting For Protections : Challenging The 21st Century Sweatshop In New York State, Jacqueline Hayes

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation examines how neoliberalism and immigration enforcement between 1980 and 2010 changed the nature of ‘sweated’ work in the U.S. This dissertation focuses on the particular case of Latino undocumented workers in New York State and the organizations fighting to win them protections. In order to answer my research questions, I conducted 30 semi-structured interviews over the course of 2 years (2013-2015), examined immigration enforcement data, and analyzed U.S. immigration and welfare policies between 1980 and the present. Research interviews made clear that both the lack of social and legal protections alongside the threat of immigration enforcement have a …