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B. Lynne Milgram

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Professor, Faculty of Liberal Studies, OCAD University
Website: http://apache.ocad.ca/faculty_biographies/bio.php?bid=1311&fac=liberal%20studies
E-mail: lmilgram@faculty.ocad.ca

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.

Keywords: Gender; formal/informal economies; legal/illegal practice; transformations in urban public space; street vending; secondhand clothing trade between the Philippines and Hong Kong; agricultural commodity chains; urban public market trade and modernization; material culture; transnational entrepreneurship between the Philippines and Canada

Upcoming Events

May
24
Tue
11:00 am Fifth Bernard H.K Luk Memorial L... @ Livestreamed and in-person
Fifth Bernard H.K Luk Memorial L... @ Livestreamed and in-person
May 24 @ 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Fifth Bernard H.K Luk Memorial Lecture in Hong Kong Studies @ Livestreamed and in-person
Envisioning Global Hong Kong Studies: Possibilities, Politics and Praxis 2022 Bernard H.K. Luk Memorial Lecture in Hong Kong Studies with Ching Kwan Lee (UCLA) The [...]
2:00 pm Negotiating Hakka Identities in ...
Negotiating Hakka Identities in ...
May 24 @ 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Negotiating Hakka Identities in Multicultural Mauritius
From seeking (temporary) refuge in a European colony in the Indian Ocean after 1860 to becoming an integral part of a post-independent ‘rainbow nation’, the [...]
Jun
10
Fri
6:00 pm Inventories of Dispossession | T... @ Centre for Social Innovation (Annex)
Inventories of Dispossession | T... @ Centre for Social Innovation (Annex)
Jun 10 @ 6:00 pm – Jun 11 @ 8:00 pm
Inventories of Dispossession | Tamil Studies Symposium 2022 @ Centre for Social Innovation (Annex)
Opening Reception and Readings Friday, 10 June 2022 from 18:00 to 21:00 EDT Register at: bit.ly/tssopeningnight22 Symposium Saturday, 11 June 2022 from 10:00 to 20:00 [...]
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