Indonesian transnational female domestic workers: Between agency and the commodification of love and care
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22373/equality.v8i1.11993Keywords:
Transnational migration, migrant domestic workers, new motherhood, money, gifts and consumption, women’s agencyAbstract
The decision for being migrant domestic workers among Indonesian mothers often creates a dilemmatic situation for them. On the one hand, they really want to secure and save their family’s economy and support their children’s education. However, on the other hand, leaving their children in the home country for a long period of time produces a guilty feeling; in fact, they are stigmatized as irresponsible and bad mothers. This article discusses how the experiences of transnational migration among Indonesian mothers for being domestic workers abroad contribute to diversify the meanings and practices of motherhood, including mother-child relations. In this study, ten participants were interviewed and asked how the transnational migration enables them to reconstruct the traditional norms, structures, patterns, and arrangements of motherhood. The studies on new motherhood among migrant mothers reveal two distinctive conceptualizations of motherhood and parenthood that center in the role of sending money and gifts, which are the emotionalization of money and the commodification of love. This article elaborates dynamic and heterogenous reasons of being engaged in the commodification and commercialization of love and care among transnational mothers. I argue that through their consumption practices and behavior, Indonesian migrant domestic workers re(produce), negotiate and maintain their personal, familial, and social relationships with their children and their society to fit their motherhood role into accepted social expectations due to their physical absence.References
Anderson, B. (2000). Doing the dirty work? The global politics of domestic labour. London and New York: Zed Books
Anggraeni, D. (2006). Dreamseekers: Indonesian women as domestic workers in Asia. Jakarta, Singapore: Equinox
Boden, Sharon and Williams, S. J. (2002). Consumption and emotion: The romantic ethic revisited. Sociology, 36(3), 493-512
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, London, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press
Chin, E. (2001). Purchasing power: Black kids and American consumer culture. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press
Clarke, A. J. (2007). Making sameness: Mothering commerce and the culture of children’s birthday parties. In Emma Casey and L. Martens (Eds.), Gender and consumption: Domestic cultures and commercialization of everyday life. Hampshire and Burlington: ASHGATE
Clarke, A. J. (2016). Designing mothers and the market: social class and material culture. In Stephanie O’Donohoe, M. et al (Eds), Motherhoods, markets and consumption: The making of mothers in contemporary western cultures. London and New York: Routledge
Coe, C. (2014). The scattered family: Parenting, African migrants, and global inequality. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press
Cook, D. T. (2004). The commodification of childhood: The children’s clothing industry and the rise of the child consumer. Durham and London: Duke University Press
Ehrenreich, B. and Hochschild, A. R. (2002). Global woman: nannies, maids, and sex workers in the new economy. Henry Holt and Company. New York: A Metropolitan/Owl Book
Fransisco, V. (2015). The transnational family as a resource for political mobilization. In Maria Kontos and Tibe B. (Eds.), Migrant domestic workers and family life: International perspectives. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Gamburd, M. R. (2000). Nurture for sale: Sri Lankan housemaids and the work of mothering. In Kathleen M. A. and Sara D. (Eds.), Home and hegemony: Domestic service and identity politics in South and Southeast Asia. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2001). Domestica: Immigrant workers cleaning and caring in the shadows of affluence. Barkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. and Avila, E. (1997). “I'm Here, but I'm There”: The Meanings of Latina Transnational Motherhood. Gender and Society, 11(5), 548-571
Gram, M. and Pedersen, H. D. (2016). Negotiations of motherhood—Between ideals and practice. In Stephanie O’Donohoe et al. (Eds.), Motherhoods, market and consumption: The making of mothers in contemporary Western cultures. London and New York: Routledge
Irawaty, D. (2017). Pekerja rumah tangga di antara paradoks politik gender dan politik developmentalisme: Studi kasus dari Indonesia Era Orde Baru. Jurnal Perempuan, 22 (94), 76-100
Kandiyoti, D. (1988). Bargaining with patriarchy. Gender and Society, 2(3), Special Issue to Honor Jessie Bernard, 274-290
Lan, Pei-Chia. (2006). Global Cinderellas: Migrant domestics and newly rich employers in Taiwan. Durham and London: Duke University Press
Lindsay, L and Maher, JaneMaree. (2013). Consuming families: buying, making, producing family life in the 21st century. New York, London: Routledge
Miller, D. (2001). The dialectics of shopping. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Miller, D. (1998). A theory of shopping. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press
Miller, T. (2005). Making sense of motherhood: A narrative approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Ngai, P. (2003). Subsumption of consumption? The phantom of consumer revolution in “globalizing” China. Cultural Anthropology, 18(4), 469-492
Parreñas, R. S. (2005). Children of global migration: Transnational families and gendered woos. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press
Parreñas, R. S. (2015). Servants of globalization: migration and domestic work. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press
Parreñas, R. S. (2002). The care crisis in the Philippines: Children and transnational families in the new global economy. In Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie R. H. (Eds.), Global woman: nannies, maids, and sex workers in the new economy. Henry Holt and Company. New York: A Metropolitan/Owl Book
Suryakusuma, J. (1996). The State and Sexuality in New Order Indonesia. In Sears, Laurie J. (Ed.), Fantasizing the feminine in Indonesia. Durham & London: Duke University Press
Zarembka, J. M. (2003). America’s dirty work: Migrant maids and modern-day slavery. In Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie H. A. (Eds.), Global woman: nannies, maids, and sex workers in the new economy. New York: Metropolitan Books
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
GENDER EQUALITY: International Journal of Child and Gender Studies allows the author(s) to hold the copyright and to retain the publishing rights without restrictions. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
