Spaces at the margins: migrant domestic workers and the development of civil society in Singapore

It has been argued in the feminist literature that the state often contribu tes to patriarchal constructions of women's subordinate positions by provid ing political space for women's incorporation into civil society not as ind ividuals and citizens but as members of a family belonging to the private s phere. In this paper the authors explore this question in the broad context of international labour migration in the Asia Pacific region, where migran t women are moving as paid reproductive labour in large numbers from less-d eveloped countries to rapidly industrialising urban nodes in the region. Th e authors ground the ensuing issues in the specific case of Singapore, a co untry currently engaged in constructing a sense of nationhood among its peo ple. Even as there is now some debate on the emergence of civil society as part of the nation-building project and possibly a larger role for social a gencies which lie outside the rubric of state parameters, there are groups of women who are excluded from this embryonic discourse. One such group is the more than 100 000 female migrant domestic workers (from the Philippines , Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and a number of other South and Southeast Asian cou ntries) who, as women, domestics, and noncitizens, are identified with the confines of the private sphere and proscribed from public space in the domi nant (and emerging) discourses. With use of a questionnaire survey, as well as in-depth interviews with foreign domestic workers, their employers, and a number of social organisations, the authors examine the politics of excl usion at the margins of society. The aims are to explore the types of socia l organisations which have opened up some 'space' within their structures f or foreign domestic workers, as well as interest groups which have certain claims to represent these women, and to clarify the roles these marginal sp aces play. This helps illumine the way these women interact with mainstream Singaporean society beyond the confines of the domestic sphere and broaden s the understanding of the boundaries of civil society in Singapore and the politics of being 'inside' and 'outside'.