Industrial development in Indonesia, development for whom?: A case study of women who work in factories in rural West Java

This research was conducted in order to address two major research questions: 1) To what extent and in what ways are a cohort of female factory workers in Sundanese West Java influential in the cultural, social and economic development of the geographic area in which they live and more specifically within their own households? 2) To what extent does the Indonesian state support or inhibit such development? In order to answer these and other secondary research questions I conducted qualitative and quantitative research. I used a theoretical framework which directed the methodology, questionnaires and both qualitative and quantitative data was collected whilst in the field in rural West Java. In this thesis I studied a cohort of female factory workers from rural West Java. The research provides more accurate data on the household status and position of young women involved in the industrialisation process in West Java and provides a better understanding of the outcomes and problems of this same process on a regional and national level. 323 women were included in the study, as were their families, during eight months fieldwork carried out in 1996/97 in Banjaran, West Java. This region is undergoing rapid industrial development and as a result is absorbing tens of thousands of young women from traditional lifestyles into factory employment. This transition has significant implications for the status of women in the region, and in Indonesia in general. The measurement of the impacts of industrial capitalism (positive and negative) upon the household, village, regional and national status of such women is the most important way in which this research analyses the implications of factory employment upon women\u27s lives. I argue that Sundanese factory women are extremely important to their household and nation and without their loyalty to both, industrial development would not be successful in contemporary Indonesia. However, Indonesian factory women are heavily inhibited by a repressive and corrupt state. I have argued in this thesis that, more than any other factor (globalisation, modernisation, capitalism), the state in Indonesia is the most inhibitive phenomenon interfering with factory women\u27s ability to share in the benefits of development and at the same time forge a new and improved status for themselves and others. More specifically, the state in Indonesia is structurally organised within strict and traditionally-oriented patriarchal parameters. The failure of this patriarchy to protect its own female factory workers, while at the same time making huge profits from their hard work, is at the centre of discussion within this thesis. It is ironic that this same state (patriarchy) demands the loyalty, discipline and respect of Indonesian women and places the responsibility for the successful development of Indonesian society and economy fairly on their shoulders. However, at the same time, state elites benefit enormously from factory women and women in general, yet provide them no protection and allow only a few to honestly share in the benefits of development. The position of Sundanese factory women vis-a-vis the state and industrial capitalism is discussed with the aid of major development theories, original research and data from similar studies to cement clearly in the minds of the readers the notion that, more than any other factor, the Indonesian state is failing most Indonesian people and specifically failing Indonesian factory women. In this thesis, the status and position of factory women act as delicate indicators of the levels of social justice and injustice in Indonesia and the extent to which major groups in Indonesian society are excluded from sharing fully in the benefits of development

Training Family Planning Field Workers By Behaviour Modelling

Workshop training paper, July 1978

Interactive Programs and Weakly Final Coalgebras in Dependent Type Theory (Extended Version)

We reconsider the representation of interactive programs in dependent type theory that the authors proposed in earlier papers. Whereas in previous versions the type of interactive programs was introduced in an ad hoc way, it is here defined as a weakly final coalgebra for a general form of polynomial functor. The are two versions: in the first the interface with the real world is fixed, while in the second the potential interactions can depend on the history of previous interactions. The second version may be appropriate for working with specifications of interactive programs. We focus on command-response interfaces, and consider both client and server programs, that run on opposite sides such an interface. We give formation/introduction/elimination/equality rules for these coalgebras. These are explored in two dimensions: coiterative versus corecursive, and monadic versus non-monadic. We also comment upon the relationship of the corresponding rules with guarded induction. It turns out that the introduction rules are nothing but a slightly restricted form of guarded induction. However, the form in which we write guarded induction is not recursive equations (which would break normalisation -- we show that type checking becomes undecidable), but instead involves an elimination operator in a crucial way

Coding Strategies for Genetic Algorithms and Neural Nets

The interaction between coding and learning rules in neural nets (NNs), and between coding and genetic operators in genetic algorithms (GAs) is discussed. The underlying principle advocated is that similar things in "the world" should have similar codes. Similarity metrics are suggested for the coding of images and numerical quantities in neural nets, and for the coding of neural network structures in genetic algorithms. A principal component analysis of natural images yields receptive fields resembling horizontal and vertical edge and bar detectors. The orientation sensitivity of the "bar detector" components is found to match a psychophysical model, suggesting that the brain may make some use of principal components in its visual processing. Experiments are reported on the effects of different input and output codings on the accuracy of neural nets handling numeric data. It is found that simple analogue and interpolation codes are most successful. Experiments on the coding of image data demonstrate the sensitivity of final performance to the internal structure of the net. The interaction between the coding of the target problem and reproduction operators of mutation and recombination in GAs are discussed and illustrated. The possibilities for using GAs to adapt aspects of NNs are considered. The permutation problem, which affects attempts to use GAs both to train net weights and adapt net structures, is illustrated and methods to reduce it suggested. Empirical tests using a simulated net design problem to reduce evaluation times indicate that the permutation problem may not be as severe as has been thought, but suggest the utility of a sorting recombination operator, that matches hidden units according to the number of connections they have in common. A number of experiments using GAs to design network structures are reported, both to specify a net to be trained from random weights, and to prune a pre-trained net. Three different coding methods are tried, and various sorting recombination operators evaluated. The results indicate that appropriate sorting can be beneficial, but the effects are problem-dependent. It is shown that the GA tends to overfit the net to the particular set of test criteria, to the possible detriment of wider generalisation ability. A method of testing the ability of a GA to make progress in the presence of noise, by adding a penalty flag, is described

Inclusion and Empowerment of Export Processing Zone Women in Sri Lanka: Stakeholders Perceptions and Perspectives

The vast majority of research on women who work in Export Processing Zones (EPZs) and in Sri Lanka focuses on the ‘lived experiences’ of the women themselves. The other major source of research with a similar focus comes from macro-economic perspectives, focusing on policy and economic rationale behind the emergence of EPZs and global export-oriented manufacturing in general. This paper provides insights into the issues of empowerment and inclusion of Sri Lankan EPZ workers, but does so from the perspective of 22 stakeholders in Sri Lanka who have unique insights to offer. The stakeholders were factory managers; senior public administrators; senior union representatives and women’s NGO representatives. In so doing the paper provides a unique insight into the issues faced by young women who work in EPZs. It also points to areas where empowerment and inclusion of women is occurring and areas where it is not

Global measures of gender empowerment: A case study of Sri Lankan Export Processing Zone (EPZ) workers

This pape r focuses on global measures of gender empowerment released a n- nually by the UNDP and the World Economic Forum. It discusses and critiques these measures on a global level and juxtaposes this analysis against research conducted among women who work in Sri Lanka\u27s Export Processing Zones (EPZs). Global measures of gender equality show that in Sri Lanka gender-based inequality is increasing, despite the nation dramatically improving its economy and poverty levels and meeting some of the Millennium Development Goals. To explain this contradiction, we sampled 2,304 women to explore how they experienced gender and empowerment and to explore synergies, or lack thereof, with global measures of gender empowerment. What the data revealed was an almost complete contradiction between the experiences of young women at the forefront of export - oriented industrial development (and hence modernization ) and the variables that made up the global measures. Our research clearly shows that women in nations such as Sri Lanka experience ‘ modernization ’ and globalization in complex ways that are influenced strongly at the local and state level by culture, media and public discourse. The women who participated in our research lived complex lives and their experiences indicated that gender inequality and empowerment require far deeper analysis before conclusions can be drawn. The data was far too contradictory to make any claims in this regard. What we did find was that their lived experiences could not be captured by global measures of gender equality and empowerment and we suggest more social research needs to be conducted into this issue

Monozygotic twins' colour-number association: a case study

A case study of a pair of monozygotic twins, both of whom show a strong and enduring colour-number association, is reported. The origin of the colours, in a jigsaw puzzle, is known. Neither reports conscious photisms typical of synaesthesia, but a Stroop task of naming the colours of digits shows an interference effect with incongruent colours