Indonesian migrant domestic workers in transnational political spaces: agency, gender roles and social class formation

Abstract

The focus of this article is a cluster of grassroots movements and networks of networks: the Association of Indonesian Migrant Workers (ATKI) based in Hong Kong. By using Kelly's [2007. Filipino Migration, Transnationalism and Class Identity (ARI Working Papers Series, 90). Singapore: Asia Research Institute.] typology of four dimensions of class (i.e. position, process, performance and politics) as a framework of analysis, the article shows that Indonesian migrant domestic workers can hold multiple class identities at various positions in transnational political space(s). Through organising in these particular spaces, Indonesian migrant domestic workers express agency, reformulate their gender roles and identify themselves as a transnational social class. This social class identification is based on their awareness of the transnational nature of the exploitation that migrants experience but is also framed within a wider global perspective of ‘root causes’ such as neoliberal policies and unjust trade agreements. By not accepting the class position ascribed to them as domestic workers, these migrant organisations chose to define their social class by performance and generate political capital. The article adds the notion of positionality to the intersectionality approach, that is, the way social class intersects with gender, economic status/occupation, ethnicity and transnational status might differ depending on the position.

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