ABSTRACT
Globalization characterized by both labour migration and global diasporic movement, in part, precipitated the onset of modernity in Asia, and has fundamentally changed the nature of identity and intimacy in Southeast Asia. Cultural and political factors continue to play an important part in defining intimacy and identity, but traditional family structures and ‘filial duties’ have broken down and the days of patriarchal Confucianism have been replaced by ‘postmodern Confucianism’ (see Chapter 2). Debates around ‘Asian values’ and the ‘Asian family’ (see Brooks 2003; Stivens 2000) of the 1990s have been largely overtaken by a number of developments. These include: the emergence of a ‘post-Asian values’ identity, characterized by the growth of ‘moral economies’ (Ong 2006) based on neoliberalism, which has precipitated transnational labour migration, which has become a significant dimension impacting on both intimacy and identity. One of the areas of major labour migration has been the growth of female migrant domestic labour, to manage emotional labour demands of professional groups, and part of what has been called ‘the commercialisation of intimacy’. This chapter explores issues of intimacy, reflexivity and identity for this
group of workers. It specifically focuses on the following: the negation of rights of intimacy for transnational female domestic labour and its translation into ‘technologies of incarceration, securitization and sterility’ (Ong 2006); the assertion of ethnicity through diasporic identity against the ‘biopolitical other’ (foreign labour) (Ong 2006); absence of a civil and caring society in the emergence of these new ‘moral economies’. These developments and theoretical implications are explored in this chapter in the context of Southeast Asia.
