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Free keywords:
globalized domestic work, recruitment and placement agencies, social construction of the body, othering, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia
Abstract:
This article discusses the role of a key actor in contemporary migration, namely recruitment and placement agencies, in the globalized economy of domestic labour. By focusing on two key migration “industries” in Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Indonesia, this article reveals how the discourses and practices of recruitment and placement agencies contribute to the making of the “ideal maid”. First, the article examines the making of labouring bodies through recruitment practices in countries of origin, and secondly, it shows how migrant women’s attitudes are normalized in an attempt to make them correspond to foreign employers’ (supposed) expectations. Finally, the article explores how logics of othering shape the recruitment and, even more so, the placement of migrant domestic workers in destination countries such as Malaysia. By considering bodies in their material and symbolic dimensions, the article points out how domestic workers are progressively produced as a “docile” labour force and as a figure of alterity in the globalized economy of domestic work.
