Maid to Queer

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisca Yuenki Lai
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Labor Migration ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Subject Formation ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Western Discourse ◽  
Alternative Sexuality ◽  
Sexual Identification

The first book about Asian female migrant workers who develop same-sex relationships in a host city. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong, the book explores the meanings of same-sex relationships to these migrant women. Instead of searching for reasons to explain why they engage in a same-sex relationship, the book provides an ethnographic perspective by addressing their Sunday activities and considering how migration policies and the practices of Hong Kong people unintentionally produce alternative sexuality and desires for them. The author contrasts the migrant experiences of same-sex relationships with the Western discourse that individuals carry a strong sense of sexual identification prior to migration; same-sex desires among Indonesian domestic workers are often not realized until they leave home. Addressing the changes from maid to queer, this book documents the intersections of domestic work, labor migration, race, and religion on the sexual subject formation, specifically how Indonesian women negotiate heteronormativity and remake a space for their love, sex, and intimacy. The book aims to create a dialogue between Asian labor migration and LGBT studies. For those interested in lesbian studies, Asian labor migration, sexual citizenship, and queer migration, this ethnography fills an important gap in explaining how the feminization of international migration and the constraints imposed on live-in domestic workers unintentionally become productive possibilities of queerness and normativity.

Migrant workers and LGBT activism: A comparative study of Filipino and Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong

Sexualities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136346072110259
Author(s):  
Francisca Yuenki Lai
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Lgbt Activism ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Migrant Groups ◽  
Shed Light

Situating LGBT activism in a gendered, Asian migratory context, this study asks why and how LGBT migrant workers are able to organize themselves and come out publicly as lesbians, bisexual women, or transgender people in Hong Kong. Which factors are enablers for this phenomenon? A comparison of two migrant groups, namely, the Filipinos and Indonesians, who reside in the same city, will shed light on both the commonalities and diversities of their understanding of LGBT rights as well as their approaches for engaging in the LGBT movement. The study examines the different immersed contexts of the two migrant groups rather than homogenizing “migrant domestic worker” as a universal description of these women. The study adopts an intersectional approach to examine how multiple subject positions, including gender, race, class, and non-citizen status, affect migrant domestic workers who have a same-sex relationship in the host city as well as their practices and activism. Besides, it also adopts an inter-Asia approach to shed light on the flows of knowledge as well as inequalities among Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Indonesia and provide insights into how LGBT activism in Asia is culturally hybrid and diasporic. Qualitative research methods, including participant observation and in-depth interviews, were conducted from 2016 to 2018. I attended LGBT parades and events and conducted in-depth interviews with three Filipinos, two Indonesians, and two Hong Kong people. I also used data from my earlier field work in 2010 to 2012.

scholarly journals On the Same Skywalk in a Time of Pandemic: How a vulnerable group copes with the new conditions in Hong Kong

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (17) ◽  
pp. 33-48
Author(s):  
Caterina Villani ◽  
Gianni Talamini ◽  
Zhijian Hu
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
High Density ◽  
The Public ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Pedestrian Network ◽  
International Publishing

The public space plays a crucial role in providing adequate infrastructure for vulnerable social groups in the context of high-density urban Asia. In this study, a well-known elevated pedestrian network in Hong Kong emerges as a revelatory case for the comparative analysis of the pattern of stationary uses before and after the COVID-19 pandemic out-break. Findings reveal a significant decrease (-20 %) in the total number of users and a shift in the pattern of activities, comprising a significant shrinkage of socially oriented uses and a vast increase of individual behaviors. This study advocates a responsive policymaking that considers the peculiar post-outbreak needs of migrant workers in Hong Kong and in high-density urban Asia Keywords: Covid-19; public space; migrant domestic workers; behavioural mapping eISSN  2514-751X © 2020 The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians / Africans / Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ajebs.v5i17.374

Visible Bodies, Invisible Work: State Practices toward Migrant Women Domestic Workers in Malaysia

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 49-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine B.N. Chin
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Labor Migration ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Migrant Labor ◽  
Labor Rights ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Invisible Work ◽  
State Involvement

The changing characteristics of labor migration in Asia today elicit an important question regarding the nature and consequences of state involvement in the entry and employment of low wage migrant workers. This paper offers an analysis of the labor-receiving state's practices toward migrant women domestic workers in Malaysia. I ascertain that the exercise of a particular kind of state power as evinced from policies and legislation, consistently make visible migrant womens' presence in society even as their labor in households is rendered invisible. A key consequence of this is the fragmentation of public support for migrant workers, and the contraction of what can be considered legitimate space for Malaysian NGO advocacy on migrant labor rights. To counteract this, some NGOs have adopted alternative strategies and targets that begin to reveal the possibility for constructing alternative forms of governance.

Discourses of Home, Gender, and Sexuality

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-37
Author(s):  
Francisca Yuenki Lai
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
The Social ◽  
Lgbt People

The chapter establishes the context for the specific gender and sexual subjectivities that the Indonesian migrant women in this study found desirable during their stay in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, public attitudes toward LGBT people tend to be accepting. This allows migrant workers to make room for their same-sex intimate behaviors and relationships. The chapter discusses the social changes in Indonesia, including the anti-LGBT sentiment, and the raids on gay and lesbians in the country. The chapter also addresses the changing notions of family and womanhood given the fact that millions of Indonesian women left to work overseas.

Discipline and Empower: The State Governance of Migrant Domestic Workers

2021 ◽  
pp. 000312242110329
Author(s):  
Rhacel Salazar Parreñas
Keyword(s):  
Labor Migration ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
The State ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
State Management ◽  
State Governance ◽  
The Creation

How do states manage their populations? Some scholars see the state as primarily governing through punishment, but how might the state engage in other forms of disciplining subjects? I address these questions by exploring the state management of labor migration through interviews and participant observation of compulsory government workshops. I look at the case of Filipino domestic workers in Arab states. States are said to exercise bio-power when they market and discipline migrants to be competitive and compliant workers, in the process ignoring migrant vulnerabilities. In contrast, this article establishes that sending states attend to migrant vulnerabilities. In addition to bio-power, states also exercise pastoral power, caring for the well-being of migrants through the creation of labor standards, regulation of migration, and education policies. This analysis extends our understanding of the state management of migration as well as the state management of populations as it advances Foucault’s discussion of the exercise of power.

scholarly journals “We also deserve help during the pandemic”: The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid D. Lui ◽  
Nimisha Vandan ◽  
Sara E. Davies ◽  
Sophie Harman ◽  
Rosemary Morgan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Employment Status ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Foreign Domestic Workers ◽  
Additional Support ◽  
Local Transmission ◽  
Blind Spots

AbstractThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic poses particular challenges for migrant workers around the world. This study explores the unique experiences of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Hong Kong, and how COVID-19 impacted their health and economic wellbeing. Interviews with FDWs (n= 15) and key informants (n= 3) were conducted between May and August 2020. FDWs reported a dual-country experience of the pandemic, where they expressed concerns about local transmission risks as well as worries about their family members in their home country. Changes to their current work situation included how their employers treated them, as well as their employment status. FDWs also cited blind spots in the Hong Kong policy response that also affected their experience of the pandemic, including a lack of support from the Hong Kong government. Additional support is needed to mitigate the particularly negative effects of the pandemic on FDWs.

Sexuality at Imagined Home: Same-Sex Desires among Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers in Hong Kong

Sexualities ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 899-913 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisca Yuenki Lai
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Family Expectations ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Future ◽  
Meaning Of Home ◽  
Migrant Domestic Workers

This article examines the contested meaning of home in shaping the sexual subjectivities of Indonesian migrant domestic workers by investigating their imagined future home. It points to the question of how individuals negotiate their sexualities when subjected to particular gendered positions. The author suggests that a transnational perspective is needed for understanding the sexuality of migrant women, who negotiate between the same-sex pleasure they obtain in Hong Kong and the family expectations they are supposed to fulfill in Indonesia. For these migrant women, sexuality is malleable because it is a continuing process of relating gendered positions to sexualities, and relating the future to the present.

Imaginings of Home

2021 ◽  
pp. 102-120
Author(s):  
Francisca Yuenki Lai
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Gender Division Of Labor ◽  
Natal Family

The chapter investigates the imaginings of home projected by Indonesian domestic workers while they are working in Hong Kong. Their imaginaries of future home provide important information for understanding their desires and sexuality in relation to the local ideology of migration and marriage as well as the political economy of family, that is, the gender division of labor and earnings contributed by women. The chapter also enriches the notion of Asian queer subjectivity by addressing how Indonesian women insinuated their homoerotic desires into the heteronormative logic of home. Addressing the Islamic context, the chapter also attends to the unmarried women who would not continue a same-sex relationship after returning to their natal family.

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