Swasti Mitter obituary
by Sheila Rowbotham from on (#1H63C)
Economist who sought to improve the lot of women during global changes in work and technology
The radical economist Swasti Mitter, who has died of cancer aged 76, pioneered the investigation of how global changes in work and technology have affected women in developing countries.
She applied the skills of a hard-headed, mathematically inclined economist, plus an exceptional capacity for empathetic social investigation, to the human consequences of shifts in the international division of labour. Beginning by collecting the testimonies of Bangladeshi immigrant homeworkers in the clothing industry in the East End of London in 1982, she went on to trace connections between the casualisation of labour in Britain and the operations of transnational corporations in developing countries.
Continue reading...