Born Out of Place: Migrant Mothers and the Politics of International Labor - Tapa blanda

Hong Kong is a meeting ground for migrant domestic workers, traders, refugees, asylum seekers, tourists and businessmen, and local residents. At the heart of this book are the stories and experiences of migrant mothers from Indonesia and the Philippines, their South Asian, African, Chinese, and Western expatriate partners, and their Hong Kong born babies. Constable gives voice to the immigrant mothers in this Asian world city and, in the process, raises a serious question: do we regard immigrants as people, or just workers? This accessible ethnography provides insight into global problems of mobility, family, and citizenship and points to the consequences, creative responses, melodramas, and tragedies of labor and migration policies.

Every Sunday in Hong Kong, tens of thousands of young women from the Philippines and Indonesia gather in public places . . . to picnic, chat, enjoy a free day, and dream of a better future. In her moving and gripping study of these migrant workers, Nicole Constable recounts their lives, giving special attention to their reproductive experience. Born Out of Place tells poignant stories of maternity and infancy, of abortion and adoption, of hardship and abandonment thus offering a compelling ethnography of the human cost of labor migration.” Didier Fassin, Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study

This book represents an impressive and innovative research effort. The subject matter is timely, and the biographical detail gives a pathos and immediacy to Constable’s narrative, making it possible for us to see the fault lines within the temporary foreign worker regimes found in Hong Kong and throughout the world.” Rubie Watson, author of Inequality among Brothers: Class and Kinship in South China

This book is so well written and accessible. . . . Constable is a superb ethnographer: she has truly captured the worlds of her informants in a way that very few ethnographers can.” Gordon Matthews, Professor of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong

An expert on gendered migration, Constable deftly shines light on the little-explored topic of women migrants who have babies. Passionately and beautifully written, this book is a must-read for all those interested in the inequities of the global economy, the disposability of low-wage labor, and the panic around women’s bodies, sex, and citizenship.” Denise Brennan, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Georgetown University