Productive and deferential bodies: the experiences of Indonesian domestic workers in Malaysia

Abstract

This article investigates the construction of the bodies of live-in Indonesian domestic workers in their employers’ homes in Malaysia. Through an analysis of everyday practices at the micro level, this study suggests that the spatiality of domestic work is central to the bodily construction of migrant workers. Surveillance and mobility restrictions in the employer’s home condition the worker’s body to be constantly productive. The body, at the same time, is inscribed with gender, racial and class differences. It is marked as deferential as a result of its proximity to the employer’s body in the enclosed space of the home. These practices take place at home, but they draw on practices by the host state and recruitment agencies. This suggests that bodily construction at the household level is inherently linked to national and global processes. Migrant domestic workers nevertheless may find themselves either adopting these constructions through self-discipline or resisting them to a limited extent. In doing so, the workers’ bodily performances bring the home into being as a performative space of power.