Renegotiating Migration Experiences: Indonesian Domestic Workers in Singapore and Use of Information Communication Technologies

Date
2016-06-27Author
Platt, Maria
Yeoh, Brenda S.A.
Acedera, Kristel Anne
Khoo, Choon Yen
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Abstract
This article considers the ways in which information communication technologies (ICTs) are embedded in foreign domestic workers' migration experiences in Singapore. Due to Singapore's stringent migration regime, whereby foreign domestic workers are required to live-in with their employers, domestic workers often find their access and use of ICTs subject to a high degree of surveillance and regulation by their employers. Using Massey's notion of power geometry, we consider how increasing reliance upon communications technology by both domestic workers and their employers necessitates a renegotiation of social relations in the household. In doing so, this article demonstrates that foreign domestic workers' negotiations of ICTs are 'always ongoing', creating fluid possibilities for these women to exercise a greater sense of agency within the realm of their daily lives. Yet, we highlight that gaining access to ICTs also requires women to negotiate the inequalities inscribed upon their position as a foreign domestic worker.
Citation
Platt, M.; Yeoh, B.S.; Acedera, K.A.; Yen, K.C.; Baey, G., and Lam, T. (2016) 'Renegotiating migration experiences: Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore and use of information communication technologies', New Media & Society, 18(10), 2207-2223, https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816655614DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816655614Rights holder
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