Description

This presentation draws from a chapter of my forthcoming book, Born Out of Place: Migrant Mothers and the Politics of International Labor.
I focus here on a spectrum of migratory situations faced by migrant women workers who become mothers in Hong Kong, paying particular attention to the experiences of those who have become asylum seekers and overstayers. These women are on the least privileged end of the migratory spectrum. Many of them have spent time in prison. Their situations are highly precarious, and their tactics are more desperate and creative than among the privileged migrant wives and workers. Their tactics, in de Certeau’s provocative words, “are procedures that gain validity in relation to the pertinence they lend to time...” (de Certeau 1984: 38). Indeed, “time” is central to mothers’ tactics which serve as interventions that creatively and strategically transform bad situations into more favorable ones, that alter the organization of space, and that fundamentally extend and transform their experiences in Hong Kong.

Nicole Constable is Professor of Anthropology in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and Director of the Asian Studies Center, at the University of Pittsburgh. She is author of several books including: Romance on a Global Stage, Maid to Order in Hong Kong, and Born Out of Place: Migrant Mothers and the Politics of International Labor, soon to be released.

Description

Andreas Harsono has covered Indonesia for Human Rights Watch since 2008. Before joining Human Rights Watch, he helped found the Jakarta-based Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information in 1995, and in 2003 he helped create the Pantau Foundation, a journalist training organization also based in Jakarta. A staunch backer of the free press, Harsono also helped establish Jakarta’s Alliance of Independent Journalists in 1994 and Bangkok’s South East Asia Press Alliance in 1998. Harsono began his career as a reporter for the Bangkok-based Nation and the Kuala Lumpur-based Star newspapers, and he edited Pantau, a monthly magazine on media and journalism in Jakarta. In Indonesian Malay, his published books include Jurnalisme Sastrawi: Antologi Liputan Mendalam dan Memikat (with Budi Setiyono) and “Agama” Saya Adalah Jurnalisme.