DUKE UNIVERSITY Durham, NC Working on the Inside, Living on the Outside: Migrant Domestic Workers in Jordan Diana Dai April 2017 Under the supervision of Dr. Frances S. Hasso, Associate Professor in Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation with Distinction Program in International Comparative Studies Trinity College of Arts and Sciences Table of Contents Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 4 Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 6 Local as Feminine and The Implications of “Agency” .........................................................................9 My Thesis: Inclusion, Labor, and Struggle .........................................................................................17 Research Methods .................................................................................................................................22 People ..................................................................................................................................................23 Additional Interviews ..........................................................................................................................27 Places ...................................................................................................................................................27 Chapter One: ............................................................................................................................... 29 An Overview of Regional and International Labor Migration in Jordan, the Middle East, and Philippines After 1973 ......................................................................................................... 29 Social and Economic Impacts of Jordanian Emigration ...................................................................34 Domestic Servitude and Migrant Domestics in Jordan .....................................................................36 Amman as a Global City .......................................................................................................................39 Labor Exportation in the Philippines: Extractive Citizenship, Nation-Building, and New Heroes .................................................................................................................................................................42 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................................48 Chapter Two: .............................................................................................................................. 50 (In)Distinguishing Inside and Outside ...................................................................................... 50 The Embedded Structures of (Il)legality .............................................................................................55 Does Legality Exist?: Conversations in Jordan ..................................................................................58 Embodied Illegality ...............................................................................................................................65 The Kafala System: Historical Insights and Contemporary Patterns ..............................................68 An Informal Market of Legal Documentation ....................................................................................71 Being “Outside” .....................................................................................................................................76 Going “Outside” ....................................................................................................................................77 Conclusion: “The Dull Compulsion of Economic Relations” ............................................................80 Chapter Three: ............................................................................................................................ 82 Acts of Conversion: Surplus, Scarcity, and Extraction ........................................................... 82 Section 1: The Remittances Discourse .................................................................................................85 Neutralizing Remittances and “Practical Arrangements” ...................................................................85 A Fact: Unremitting Remitters ............................................................................................................86 Section 2: Wages en masse, Bodies en masse ......................................................................................88 Filipina Remitters, Filipina Bodies .....................................................................................................88 Section 3: Earning Wages .....................................................................................................................92 Bodies, Wages, and Employers ...........................................................................................................92 Obscuring Exploitation Through Intimacy and Affective Language ................................................101 Section 4: Using Money .......................................................................................................................106 Making Commensurable ...................................................................................................................106 Consumption and the Trap of Money: How Acts of Freedom are Imbedded in the Logic of Money ...........................................................................................................................................................110 Conclusion: Lessons about Choice .....................................................................................................114 2 Chapter Four: ............................................................................................................................ 116 A Case Study of UNIFEM’s “Empowering Women Migrant Workers in Asia” and the Politics of Depoliticization ........................................................................................................ 116 NGO-isation and Depoliticizing Political Change ............................................................................117 Main Implementation Mechanisms and Funding ............................................................................118 Stifling Grassroots Efforts ..................................................................................................................122 The “Perfect Student” and the Pretension of Progress ....................................................................124 Continued Focus on Development Discourse ....................................................................................128 Political Satire or Normalizing Abuse? Discursive Effects of the Abu-Mahjoob Cartoons .........130 Give us a Better Patriarchy ................................................................................................................133 Privatizing Abuse ..............................................................................................................................136 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................140 Conclusion: ................................................................................................................................ 142 Ceaseless Migrations ................................................................................................................. 142 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 145 3 Acknowledgements My first and greatest thanks goes to my advisor, Professor Frances Hasso. All I truly want from my undergraduate experience is to find inspiring, tough, compassionate, and intellectual mentors to learn from, listen to, and converse with. I am lucky and honored to have worked under your instruction this past year, as a student and an advisee. The time and effort you took to meet with me, read my drafts, and guide me through this process has taught me to think and write in a totally different (and better) way. Thank you for your labor, and for the numerous entertaining conversations. Many, many, many thanks to Professor Jessica Namakkal for your irreplaceable guidance this past year. Writing a thesis takes quite the toll, emotionally and physically, but your support throughout this entire process has kept me grounded and focused, and I am truly grateful for that. Thank you to Professor Sara Ababneh at the Center for Strategic in Amman, Jordan. Your lessons in October 2015 during the IHP Human Rights program was one of catalysts that sparked my passion for critical theory. Working as your research assistant the following summer at CSS was also essential to developing the intellectual