Book Title

The Discourse of Powerlessness and Repression: Life Stories of Domestic Migrant Workers in Hong Kong

Publisher

Routledge

Year of Publication

2016

ISBN

9781138640474

Introduction

Drawing on a large corpus of narratives recorded at a church shelter for abused domestic helpers in Hong Kong, this monograph explores how the women discursively construct themselves in sharing sessions with other helpers. They see themselves as ‘helpers’ who have come to Hong Kong to help their families, to help the people in the city, and to serve God. A wide variety of competing identities are constructed in the narratives: submissive helper, sacrificial mother, daughter and wife, and powerless traumatised victim, but also resourceful indignant migrant women who, through sharing and peer support, become empowered to fight against abusive employers. This book provides a detailed discourse analysis of the women’s narratives, but it also explores larger issues such as global migration, exploitation, language and power, abuse and the psychology of evil, intergroup communication, and peer support and empowerment.

Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Methodology and Theoretical Frameworks
3. Poverty and Dependence: Discourses of Inferiority and Social Deprivation
4. Global Servants and Servants of God: Sacrificial Mothers, Daughters and Wives
5. The Destructiveness of Distance: Unfaithful Husbands and Absent Mothers
6. Trauma Narratives: The Destruction of Self
7. ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: Discourses of Resistance, Agency and Peer Support
8. Demonising the Cultural Other: Depersonalisation and Dehumanisation of Foreign Domestic Helpers
9. Research and Social Activism: Working On, For and With Domestic Migrant Workers
10. Conclusion

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