Contextual politics of difference in transnational care: the rhetoric of Filipina domestics' employers in Taiwan.
The construction of foreign domestics as 'Others' has been a critical process to the globalization of domestic service. While the globalization of domestic service has been associated with a transnational female labour force, the transnational labour system has always been reconstituted as a new lab...
| Published in: | Feminist Review no. 77; pp. 46 - 65 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Sage Publications Inc.
2004
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=14683583&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 14683583 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01417789 FER jtl: Feminist Review issn: 01417789 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: 2004 iid: 77 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. artinfo: ui: 14683583 10.1057/palgrave.fr.9400156 ppf: 46 ppct: 19 formats: tig: atl: Contextual politics of difference in transnational care: the rhetoric of Filipina domestics' employers in Taiwan. aug: au: Shu-Ju Ada Cheng affil: Assistant Professor in Sociology, DePaul University su: Home economics Household employees Employees Occupations Labor Globalization Labor supply Labor market Taiwan sug: subj: Taiwan Home economics Household employees Employees Occupations Labor Globalization Labor supply Labor market keyword: citizenship Domestic service Filipinas globalization racialization ab: The construction of foreign domestics as 'Others' has been a critical process to the globalization of domestic service. While the globalization of domestic service has been associated with a transnational female labour force, the transnational labour system has always been reconstituted as a new labour regime consistent with local particularity. In this article, I examine how Taiwanese employers discursively construct the otherness of their Filipina domestics. I argue that Taiwanese employers construct and naturalize the otherness of foreign domestics utilizing notional identities, racial characteristics, and nationally based class difference. These differences, integral to the racialization of foreign domestics, are central not only to the persistence of their servitude at home but also to their social and political marginalization in the host society as a whole. The localization of a transnational labour force necessitates the examination of the contextual politics of difference. Rather than speaking of the universalized experience of foreign domestics, the contextual politics of difference provides a comparative framework for understanding not only the relational but also the contextual nature of identity construction. It demonstrates how difference is localized in the transnational system of care and how the localization of difference serves to reproduce social and global inequality. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2004 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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