B. Lynne Milgram

Lynne Milgram’s research is rooted in anthropology, but lends itself to interdisciplinary collaborations of all kinds. Analyzing the commoditization of crafts, consumption and small-scale entrepreneurial activities in the northern Philippines, Milgram’s doctoral research traced the channels through which women exercise agency in their changing roles in craft production and trade with the advent of global market forces. Subsequently analyzing the socioeconomic and political impacts of microfinance development projects mounted throughout the Philippines, Milgram explored the relationship between the institutional claim to empowerment and the capacity of program structures to generate ‘real’ opportunities for women.

Milgram’s current projects examine Philippine women’s engagement in the global trade and consumption of secondhand clothing between the Philippines and Hong Kong and women’s work as street vendors. Both enterprises straddle legal/illegal practice and have emerged as growing arenas of labour given increasing rural-to-urban migration and declines in formal-sector jobs. Milgram argues that these women operationalize multiple work options to simultaneously negotiate their positions as sites of globally competitive economic activity and local struggles over state restructuring. Milgram makes her findings applicable for policy formation by government and non-government organizations seeking to sustain livelihood opportunities for women via a range of appropriate initiatives.

Representative Publications:

Books
2013 Street Economies in the Urban Global South. Karen Tranberg Hansen, Walter E. Little, B. Lynne Milgram, editors. Sante Fe, NM: School of Advanced Research Press.

2000 Artisans and Cooperatives: Developing Alternative Trade for the Global Economy. Kimberly M. Grimes and B. Lynne Milgram, editors. Tuscon, AZ: University of Arizona Press.

Articles
2015 Unsettling Urban Marketplace Redevelopment in Baguio City, Philippines. Economic Anthropology 1 (2): 77-89. (Special issue: “The Economy of Cities,” Dolores Koeing and Ty Matejowsky, guest eds.).

2014 Remapping the Edge: Informality and Legality in the Harrison Road Night Market, Baguio City, Philippines. City & Society 26 (2): 155-178. (Special issue: “Norms, Networks, and Informality in the Urban Global South: Unmapping Regulatory Space." B. Lynne Milgram and Walter E. Little, guest eds.).

2010 From Trash to Totes: Recycled Production and Cooperative Economy Practice in the
Philippines. Human Organization 69 (1): 75-85.

2008 Activating Frontier Livelihoods: Women and the Transnational Secondhand
Clothing Trade between Hong Kong and the Philippines. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development 37 (1): 5-47.