ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 pandemic precipitated an ‘existential crisis’ in the global fashion industry. The effects of the crisis on the retail sector resulted in many brands deferring or cancelling orders from supplier factories without paying workers, which had an instant and calamitous impact on the lives of garment workers in the global South. While activist organizations were quick to launch campaigns demanding that fashion brands #PayUp and take responsibility for their producers, these calls seemed futile in the face of fashion supply chains that have long been structured in ways that absolve brands of responsibility. The stories of worker exploitation and abuse in the garment industry that emerged during the pandemic were not discussed as effects of global capitalism, but rather were recast as evidence of a world suddenly in ‘crisis.’ In this article, we reflect on how the language of ‘crisis’ adopted in the early months of the pandemic produced particular modes and instruments of (ir)responsibility. We present an analysis of the effects of the pandemic on the global fashion industry, as well as the #PayUp and #WeWearAustralian campaigns, and argue that the exceptionalism underpinning the crisis discourse has both diffused and narrowed responsibility for garment worker exploitation, reiterating the very racialised inequalities that allow such exploitation to occur in the first place.

摘要

Covid-19大流行引发了全球时装业的“生存危机”。危机对零售业的影响导致许多品牌推迟或取消了供应商工厂的订单而无须支付工资，这对全球南方的制衣工人的生活造成了即时和灾难性的影响。激进组织迅速发起要求时尚品牌#PayUp并对其生产者负责的运动，但面对长期以免除品牌责任的方式构建的时尚供应链，这些呼吁似乎是徒劳的。大流行期间出现的关于服装业中工人被剥削和虐待的故事并未被讨论为全球资本主义的影响，而是被重新铸造为世界突然陷入“危机”的证据。在本文中，我们反思大流行初期几个月采用的“危机”一词如何产生（责任）责任的特定模式和手段。我们对大流行对全球时装业以及#PayUp和#WeWearAustralian运动的影响进行了分析，并认为支撑危机话语的例外主义既分散又缩小了对成衣工人剥削的责任，重申了这一点。种族歧视的不平等首先导致了这种剥削。