This Master’s thesis explores the intersection of powers that create (in)secure female migration to Lebanon. It contributes to a growing literature corpus about the lives of women, originating from South/ South-East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, who migrate to Lebanon to work in the domestic work sector. Ongoing exploitations of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) under Lebanon’s migration regime, the kafala system, have been documented in detail. Yet, the question about which overlapping powers actually shape the migratory experience of MDWs calls for closer inspection – especially in light of previous unidirectional analyses that seem to obscure the intersectional experiences of migrant women. By uncovering intersecting systems of domination and subordination, this analysis aims to deconstruct oppressive powers and to answer the research question about which powers create (in)secure female migration to Lebanon. This objective is approached through ethnographic-qualitative methods of semi-structured interviewing and participant observation during a seven-week field research in Lebanon. Data contributed by research participants, i.e. MDWs themselves and individuals that have experience in supporting them, are analyzed through an intersectional lens that acknowledges the multifacetedness of MDWs as social beings comprised of overlapping and intersecting dynamic facets. This analysis argues for multiple levels and layers that create an enmeshed web of interacting categories, processes and systems that render female migration insecure. Detected underlying powers range from global forces over specific migration regulations to societal structures that are based on sexism, racism, cultural othering and class differences - amongst others. These forces are impossible to deconstruct in isolation because they function through each other. Their multilevel intersections lead to power imbalances between worker and employer, isolation and invisibility of the former on several levels as well as the commodification, dehumanization and mobility limitations of MDWs. Yet, female labor migrants counter these intersecting powers through creative and dynamic acts of resistance and self-empowerment and, thus, prove that the dismantling of overlapping oppressions calls for intersecting multilevel deconstructions.

More and more women from poor areas of the world are migrating to rich countries for domestic work. Given the increasing published research on their exploitation and ‘slavery,’ much policy action has been oriented towards their protection as victims. Far from protecting the livelihood needs of these migrant workers, however, this victim-based approach has instead resulted in legitimising the protection of rich countries’ borders. An emerging perspective underscoring migrant women’s agency is producing a counter-approach that fights for migrant workers’ rights: not as victims but as workers. Yet despite this important development in research and policy agendas, increasing inequality in the global economy and stringent immigration policies render a rights-based approach ineffective. From poor countries, and with very limited livelihood options, these migrant women choose overseas domestic work often at the expense of their human rights. As migrants, they are outsiders whose rights are superseded by the rights of the sovereign, receiving-state. How is it possible then, to protect the rights of these workers? This thesis employs Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s Capability Approach to evaluate the efficacy of these women’s agency in overcoming victimisation. This evaluation gives equal consideration to the victim and rights-based perspectives. It synthesises the Capability Approach with Anthony Giddens’ Structuration Theory in order to reconcile the polarised theories underlying the victim and rights-based perspectives - feminist structural theory and migration agency theory, respectively. In so doing, the study is able to refine the conceptualisation of agency from the highly ambiguous rights-based approach, to a more theoretically sound and feasible capability approach. The main hypothesis is that agency requires capability to successfully mediate victimisation; agency in itself is insufficient. The study draws on the experiences of Filipina overseas domestic workers in Paris and Hong Kong to test this hypothesis, and demonstrates how it is ‘capability’ that can turn the ‘slave’ into ‘the worker’, and protect ‘the worker’ from turning into a ‘slave.’

The aim of this thesis is to understand how the political mobilisation of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) employed in Lebanon started and continued. It also tries to comprehend how some of them could found a politically active collective of MDWs, the Alliance of Domestic Workers in Lebanon (Alliance), by analysing what factors enabled and restrained the open political activism of MDWs from their first steps as activists until now. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with two founding members and seven international and Lebanese organisations, the MDWs´ political mobilisation is chronologically recaptured. Extending Lahusen´s definition of political mobilisation, the thesis critically reflects on Johnston´s concept for protest to evolve in repressive states. The analysis shows that the women activists are left in a lawless position and refer to the free spaces of Lebanese and international non-profit organisations, where their activism begins. These organisations help the women to build up their protest capital, enabling them to start their own group, the Alliance. Within their own group they organise themselves not only against the injustice they experience as MDWs but also emancipate themselves from their dependency on the NGOs. The findings approve that though international and Lebanese organisations have played a crucial part in successfully mobilising the women, the MDWs´ experience of lack of influence inside these free spaces, shapes the group´s actions, collective identity and course. Their political mobilisation can be seen as a long-term, organic process, in which knowledge, collective identity, collective action and experience are tightly interwoven and are the motor behind the members´ activism.

This dissertation studies how the Indonesian state facilitates the migration of its female citizens for employment as domestic workers in Hong Kong. Applying the research perspective of ethnographic migration and border regime analysis, I scrutinize the multiplicity of state and non-state practices in one of Asia’s major ‘labor brokerage’ countries. Building on a 12-month multi-sited ethnography in Indonesia and Hong Kong, the study sheds light on the desired and lived subjectivities of the workers and asks how these negotiate visions of national development and official expectations brought forward to them. Informed by Foucauldian, postcolonial, and feminist perspectives, I carve out how a variety of actors are invested in making Indonesia’s migrant domestic workers more respectable. I introduce the concept of respectability and situate official notions of the ‘ideal migrant’ in aspirations to modernize Indonesian brokerage on the one hand and in discourses that circle around national dignity on the other. I discuss respectability in light of the tensions inherent in labor brokerage. I show that in their subjective practices, migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong challenge official strivings for respectability, thus engaging in everyday politics from below that have repercussions on the Indonesian society. The dissertation extends earlier studies that highlight the role of gendered morality in disciplining migrant labor force. In addition, it incorporates notions of progressiveness and class distinction and points out that negotiations over migrants’ subjectivities are indicative of fundamental contestations over the self-conceptions of labor brokerage states. By examining a sending state in the Global South, it provides a global view and productively connects research on transnational migration in Asia with ethnographic migration and border regime analyses, which have hitherto mainly focused on European and North American border regimes. The dissertation gives insights in how transnational labor migration shapes the modes in which questions of (national) belonging and visions of societal well-being are negotiated in post-authoritarian Indonesia.

This thesis explores globalization’s effects on female migrant domestic workers in Latin America by examining the socioeconomic and political status of Paraguayan and Peruvian domestic workers in Argentina. Through this research, I answer several key questions. First, how does globalization shape neoliberal markets that enforce the exploitative structures of domestic labor? Second, how is gender inequality present in governmental and social discrimination? Third, do the costs of transnational care labor outweigh the benefits? The former two questions are answered by the rising demand for care labor and resulting global care chains that fuel greater cross-border migration and statelessness of female migrants. Additionally, cultural and familial pressures magnify the sexual division of labor and maintain domestic labor’s low social status. Using a gender analysis, I address the last question by concluding that gender inequalities through governmental and social discrimination, plus emotional-familial burdens, outweigh domestic labor’s short-sighted financial prospects and autonomy provided by globalization.

摘要 本研究探討印尼家傭，使用智慧型手機維護家庭親密關係的經驗。透過對台灣20名印尼家傭工進行深入訪談並觀察他們的在臉書的活動來究探討智慧型手機在跨國母親和遠距離婚姻中的複雜性，同時強調了家庭中的性別權力動態。部分由於智慧型手機作為相對較新的出現，智慧型手機與跨國母親尚未得到系統的研究。雖然已有若干研究探究了印尼家傭雖使用智慧型手機的經驗，但其獨特的社會文化特徵尚未得到充分和獨立的探究。 研究發現，智慧型手機是家傭維持家庭親密關係的不可或缺的工具。WhatsApp和LINE的語音通話和簡訊，是最被偏好的通訊模式。他們的溝通方式常受雇主控制;然而，一般來說，他們享有使用智慧型手機的通訊自由。智慧型手機的永續連結性為家傭提供了一個虛擬環境創造與孩子的共存感，增溫了他們的關係，並且使家傭能夠向子女提供宗教指導，履行他們作為穆斯林母親的教育責任。智慧型手機也用於配偶間的溝通，儘管頻率往往由妻子或其就業情況決定。 以Goffman的被寵壞的認同（spoiled identity）作為視角，本研究指出印尼家傭在工作期間遭受「作為與雇主同居女傭」之污名化，他們使用各種策略，用智慧型手機進行形象管理來應對他們的生活，包括與丈夫選擇性的分享他們的生活。這項研究進一步假定，在女性移工透過智慧型手機進行密集的網路互動不僅可以作為再現性別角色規範的場所。相反來說，它也是性別規範不斷被挑戰和重建的場所。本研究強調，受污名化的印尼女性家傭移工在其所居的社區之地位的再協商、。控制、賦權、應對策略之要素。 / Abstract This study explores the experience of Indonesian domestic workers in using smartphones to maintain family intimacy. By conducting in-depth interviews with 20 Indonesian domestic workers in Taiwan and observing their Facebook activities, this study examines the intricacy of smartphone use in transnational mothering and distant marriage while highlighting the gender power dynamics in the family. Partly due to its relatively recent emergence, smartphone use for transnational mothering has not been systematically investigated. While Indonesian domestic workers have been included in several studies on this subject, their unique sociocultural characteristics have not been sufficiently and independently examined. The findings suggest that smartphones are an indispensable instrument for family intimacy among domestic workers. Voice calls and text messages via mobile application such as WhatsApp and LINE are the most preferred modes of communication. Their communication practices are often conditioned by their employers; however, in general, they enjoy freedom to use smartphones for communication. Perpetual connectivity of smartphones gives the domestic workers the perception of co-presence with their children in virtual environment which enhances the warmth of their relationship and allows domestic helpers to fulfil their spiritual duties as Muslim mothers by providing religious guidance to their children. Smartphones are also used for spousal communication although the frequency is often dictated by the wives or their employment circumstances. Based on Goffman’s concept of spoiled identity, this study argues that Indonesian domestic workers face social stigma during their work as live-in maids and device various strategies in order to cope with their living condition by using smartphone activities for impression management, including with their husbands by selectively share their life stories. This study further posits that the intensive networked interaction via smartphones during feminized migration does not only serve as a site for the reproduction of normative gender roles. Instead, it is also a venue where these gender norms are challenged and reconstructed constantly. This study highlights the elements of control, empowerment and coping strategies of Indonesian maids to renegotiate their position within their communities during feminized (and stigmatized) migration.

Cette thèse traite des effets de la migration sur le statut professionnel et social des travailleuses domestiques et des nouveaux rapports de subordination qui en découlent, analysés à l'intersection des rapports de genre, de classe et de « race ». Le but de cette recherche est d'aborder l'ordre hiérarchique de ces différents rapports et d'analyser les causes structurelles de la subordination. Les travailleuses migrantes chaoxianzu appartenaient à la classe symboliquement au pouvoir dans la Chine socialiste, en tant qu’ouvrières industrielles et agricoles. En examinant leur expérience de travail dans cinq villes de trois pays - France, Corée du Sud et Chine - nous analysons comment les conditions de travail de chaque société d’immigration affectent leur statut en tant que travailleuses. Les participantes à notre recherche vivent et perçoivent leur expérience de travail à la lumière de l’habitus professionnel de la Chine socialiste, basé sur la fierté en tant que travailleuses. Selon leur perception, dans la migration, elles ne changent pas pour un niveau hiérarchique et professionnel inférieur, mais souffrent, collectivement, de la position subalterne des travailleurs domestiques sans-papiers dans le référentiel de l’ordre hiérarchique de la société capitaliste. Plutôt qu'un travail trivial, elles perçoivent leur métier comme une somme de tâches nobles, physiques et émotionnelles. Elles s’inscrivent dans la chaîne globalisée du care. Mais, en s'interrogeant sur leur statut subalterne, elles remettent en cause la logique de reproduction de la hiérarchie sociale. / This thesis deals with the effects of migration on the occupational and social status of domestic workers and the resulting new relationships of subordination that are analyzed at the intersection of gender, class and ‘race’ relations. The purpose of this research is to address the hierarchical order of these different relationships and to analyze the structural causes of subordination. The Chaoxianzu women migrant workers belonged to the class symbolically in power in socialist China, as industrial and agricultural workers. By examining their work experience in five cities in three countries - France, South Korea and China - we analyze how the working conditions of each immigration society affect their status as women workers. The participants in our research live and perceive their work experience in light of their professional habitus of socialist China, based on pride as women workers. According to their perception, in migrating they do not change for a lower hierarchical and professional level, but collectively suffer from the subordinate position of undocumented domestic workers typical for capitalist society’s hierarchical order. Rather than perceiving their job as trivial, they see it as a sum of noble, physical and emotional tasks. They are part of the global chain of care. But, in questioning their subordinate status, they undermine the logic inherent to the reproduction of social hierarchies.

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