In this dynamic study of domestic service in Taiwan, Pei-Chia Lan examines the creation of social and spatial boundaries. Between 1998 and 2003, she carried out ethnographic fieldwork with employers and guest workers in Taiwan, and also visited Indonesia and the Philippines. Lan makes an important contribution to the scholarly conversation about domestic service. This book fills a gap in the literature by providing detailed information on Taiwan, and also breaks new ground by examining transnational subjects and their use of space and space-imploding technologies, such as mobile phones and email. She explores the micro-dynamics of the employment relationship, analyzing how global inequalities play out in boundary maintenance activities in Taiwanese homes and cities.
Setting the global context, Lan considers Taiwan's ambiguous place in the community of nations. Shadowed by China, the Taiwanese state uses its employment policy to forge political relationships with Asian labor-sending countries burdened by high debt and unemployment. She deftly illustrates how labor migration shapes and is shaped by identities of race, ethnicity, and nationality. Examining how job agencies recruit, train, and place domestic servants, Lan asserts that the use of ethnic stereotypes creates a segmented labor market justifying differential treatment of Filipinos and Indonesians.
Taiwanese state policies privatize reproductive labor and shift it into the realm of the family. Lan demonstrates how the demand for care work plays out against local gendered assumptions about filial and parental obligations, residence patterns, motherhood, marriage, and wage earning in Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Taiwanese women and their “market surrogates” (p. 95) negotiate childcare, elder care, cooking, and cleaning. Domestic servants are at once fictive kin (trusted and loved) and racialized others (supervised and disciplined). She shows that shared space leads to both emotional intimacy and social distance and hierarchy.
Lan provides a nuanced discussion of the class position of migrant domestic workers. Filipino workers are highly educated, downwardly mobile, English-speaking middle-class women working for newly rich Taiwanese employers, many of whom have less cultural capital. Rich analysis shows that how personal or patronizing relationships develop depends on the duties performed and the class positions of maid and madam.
On their days off, workers escape the surveillance and discipline imposed by their employers. Drawing on extensive participant observation, Lan vividly depicts workers' “backstage” (161) life in public spaces such as churches, malls, and railway stations. Like “Cinderella,” on Sundays workers dress modishly, eat familiar foods, gossip, dance, and escape the deference and drudgery of their workweek. Through electronic networking (cellular phone calls and SMS [short message services]), domestic servants challenge spatial isolation, maintain ties with each other and their families back home, and create virtual communities.
This engaging and readable book shows how globalization affects urban spaces and household dynamics. It will interest students and scholars of Asian Studies, Women's Studies, Globalization, Sociology, and Anthropology, particularly those studying the cultural construction of identity and the negotiation of interpersonal power.
