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Journal article

Eastern Indonesian Women on the Move: Domestic Work in Global Cities

Date

2003

Authors

Catharina Purwani Williams

Abstract

An examination of the experiences of Indonesian women who migrated from East Nusa Tenggara to engage in domestic work in Hong Kong & other global cities focuses on how they experienced different spaces of transnational movement & how strategies they used to cope with shifting subject positions affected their ability to negotiate their position & achieve their personal goals. Information was obtained from interviews conducted in 1999 & 2000 with 15 women who had returned to East Nusa Tenggara after working as domestics abroad. Their material conditions & experience of spaces are mapped through successive stages of leaving home, traveling, working abroad, & returning home. Attention is given to what motivated them to leave; how they were recruited & obtained familial consent; the "in-transit" period that involved living in dormitories provided by employment agencies; physical & metaphorical transformations needed to meet the expectations of their employers; networks of social relations; & the impact of the sojourning experience on family & community relations after returning home. 6 Figures, 41 References. J. Lindroth

Journal title

Antropologi Indonesia

Volume

27

Issue

72

Page numbers

83

Links

Economic sectors

Occupations in services - Domestic work and Home child care providers

Target groups

Researchers

Geographical focuses

Regional relevance

Languages

English