Nineteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

With news of their abuse in Asia making headlines worldwide, Indonesian live-in maids working in foreign countries have aptly been described as “modern-day slaves.” Often young and with little education, they frequently have little recourse from abuse, as the many laws meant to protect them in practice oppress them – in contrast to the prototypical, often highly educated Filipina maids, who have an experienced state speaking for them (Rodriguez 2010). Aside from vastly different demographics and culture, the Indonesian state also takes a different approach to controlling and protecting its migrant citizens as compared to the Filipino state – but that approach has barely been explored as yet. Migrant domestic workers’ identity is defined by a state of limbo – they are citizens of one state but residents of another; paid workers hired on the open market but confined to the intimate sphere of the home; earning more than they would back in their country but still at the bottom of the host state’s social hierarchy. Such tensions are not merely the result of case-by-case incidents or even demographic patterns, but of institutional structures (government policies, support networks) that perpetuate inequalities and disadvantages – structures that differ by nationality and in host nations, with very real consequences for maids. My research thus seeks to make an intervention by asking how inequalities between states – particularly in sending and receiving states – affect migrant labor identities and outcomes, and what are the interactive mechanisms by which they affect outcomes.