Lynne Milgram

lmilgram@ocadu.ca
Professor, Emerit/Emerita/Emeritus
Faculty of Arts & Science

Lynne Milgram’s research while rooted in gender studies and anthropology lends itself to a range of interdisciplinary collaborations. Analyzing the commoditization of local craft production and its contribution to household economies in Ifugao province, northern Philippines, Milgram’s doctoral research charted the criteria women artisans use to determine their differential engagement in cultivation, wage labour, and crafts (weaving, woodcarving, basketry). Subsequently investigating 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 microfinance program structures to generate “real” opportunities for women. Further pursuing these issues but with regard to other emergent so-called “informal” spheres of women’s entrepreneurial work, Milgram analyzed Philippine women’s engagement in the global trade of second hand clothing, specifically that between the Philippines and Hong Kong, and women’s work as street vendors and public market traders. These enterprises straddle formal/informal and legal/illegal practice and are growing alternative arenas of labour and livelihood given increasing rural-to-urban migration and the lack of formal-sector jobs.

Milgram’s current Philippine research continues to problematize the concepts of informality, extralegality, governmentality, and social entrepreneurship regarding public market modernization and food provisioning systems in Baguio City, the northern region’s emergent Arabica coffee industry, and social entrepreneurs’ growing use of the internet to globally market artisanal production. Throughout her research, Milgram argues that producers (women and men) 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 and implementation by government and non-government organizations seeking to support livelihood opportunities via a range of sustainable initiatives.