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• 1. [Article] Book Review of, Caitrin Lynch. <i>Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka’s Global Garment Industry</i>

  Reviews the book "Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka’s Global Garment Industry," by Caitrin Lynch

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Book Review of, Caitrin Lynch. <i>Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka’s Global Garment Industry</i> Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2008 Reviews the book "Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka’s Global Garment Industry," by Caitrin Lynch Title: Book Review of, Caitrin Lynch. <i>Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka’s Global Garment Industry</i> Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2008 Reviews the book "Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka’s Global Garment Industry," by Caitrin Lynch Close

• 2. [Article] Class Identity and the International Division of Labor: Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids

  In 1996, 408,000 Sri Lankan women, nearly 10% of the country’s working-age women, worked abroad, many of them in the oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf. In this paper I compare the influence of ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Class Identity and the International Division of Labor: Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 1998 In 1996, 408,000 Sri Lankan women, nearly 10% of the country’s working-age women, worked abroad, many of them in the oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf. In this paper I compare the influence of international migration on local hierarchies of class and gender in two villages in southern Sri Lanka: a Sinhala-speaking Buddhist village where I did my doctoral dissertation research in 1992-4, and a Tamil-speaking Muslim village where I spent some time during the summer of 1997. I discuss the challenges of using ‘class’ as a unit of analysis in a non-Western setting where gender identities, family ties, caste solidarity, religious allegiance, and ethnic affiliation also shape economic relations. Bringing female domestic servants into the global economy revolutionizes local understandings of both class and gender. Although it receives recognition as ‘work’, housework and childcare remain ‘women’s work’, and women’s internationally accepted gender status as unskilled, ‘supplemental’ family wage earners justifies meager salaries for housemaids. High Sri Lankan demand for scarce jobs in West Asia drives wages down and agency fees up, keeping housemaids ‘working class’ in the global economy. Isolated in the homes of their individual employers, migrant housemaids nevertheless are evolving a nascent class consciousness through their struggles with local Sri Lankan middlepeople and through retold stories of conflicts with abusive employers. Religious and ethnic differences between the Sinhala and Muslim villages affect the extent of class solidarity. The paper investigates how patterns social stratification, such as religious and ethnic practices, caste statuses, and gender roles affect the emergence of class identity in two villages in Sri Lanka. Title: Class Identity and the International Division of Labor: Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 1998 In 1996, 408,000 Sri Lankan women, nearly 10% of the country’s working-age women, worked abroad, many of them in the oil producing countries of the Persian Gulf. In this paper I compare the influence of international migration on local hierarchies of class and gender in two villages in southern Sri Lanka: a Sinhala-speaking Buddhist village where I did my doctoral dissertation research in 1992-4, and a Tamil-speaking Muslim village where I spent some time during the summer of 1997. I discuss the challenges of using ‘class’ as a unit of analysis in a non-Western setting where gender identities, family ties, caste solidarity, religious allegiance, and ethnic affiliation also shape economic relations. Bringing female domestic servants into the global economy revolutionizes local understandings of both class and gender. Although it receives recognition as ‘work’, housework and childcare remain ‘women’s work’, and women’s internationally accepted gender status as unskilled, ‘supplemental’ family wage earners justifies meager salaries for housemaids. High Sri Lankan demand for scarce jobs in West Asia drives wages down and agency fees up, keeping housemaids ‘working class’ in the global economy. Isolated in the homes of their individual employers, migrant housemaids nevertheless are evolving a nascent class consciousness through their struggles with local Sri Lankan middlepeople and through retold stories of conflicts with abusive employers. Religious and ethnic differences between the Sinhala and Muslim villages affect the extent of class solidarity. The paper investigates how patterns social stratification, such as religious and ethnic practices, caste statuses, and gender roles affect the emergence of class identity in two villages in Sri Lanka. Close

• 3. [Article] Sri Lanka's "Army of Housemaids": Control of Remittances and Gender Transformations

  When the mass labor migration of women to the Middle East began in the early 1980's, many Sri Lankan social scientists predicted a revolution in gender equality and a greater participation by women in ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Sri Lanka's "Army of Housemaids": Control of Remittances and Gender Transformations Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 1995 When the mass labor migration of women to the Middle East began in the early 1980's, many Sri Lankan social scientists predicted a revolution in gender equality and a greater participation by women in political and economic decision-making as a result of employment abroad. Noting that gender rarely correlates in predictable ways with social change, and questioning the dominant teleological ideology that change always happens for the better, this paper looks at relations between female migrants in a coastal village in the Southwest and the people responsible for spending and saving the money they remit to the village. Several case studies reveal the extent to which men have not taken over tasks such as child care and household chores. In allmale drinking groups, unemployed husbands reassert their masculinity in the face of their wives' new role as breadwinner. The values of the drinking community stand in implicit opposition to values channeling family resources towards 'getting developed' (diyunu venavaa), the dominant village idiom of successful migration. Several women's stories document their struggles, including the ultimate protest of a suicide attempt, to control the money they sent back to the village. In cases where women's work has bettered their family's economic standing in the village, women and their husbands and fathers enjoy new social privileges and authority. Finally, migration as an avenue of escape provides a new option for women caught in untenable home situations. By examining the gendered power dynamics of the microprocesses of social change, this paper explores the extent to which women's lives have and have not improved through migration. Title: Sri Lanka's "Army of Housemaids": Control of Remittances and Gender Transformations Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 1995 When the mass labor migration of women to the Middle East began in the early 1980's, many Sri Lankan social scientists predicted a revolution in gender equality and a greater participation by women in political and economic decision-making as a result of employment abroad. Noting that gender rarely correlates in predictable ways with social change, and questioning the dominant teleological ideology that change always happens for the better, this paper looks at relations between female migrants in a coastal village in the Southwest and the people responsible for spending and saving the money they remit to the village. Several case studies reveal the extent to which men have not taken over tasks such as child care and household chores. In allmale drinking groups, unemployed husbands reassert their masculinity in the face of their wives' new role as breadwinner. The values of the drinking community stand in implicit opposition to values channeling family resources towards 'getting developed' (diyunu venavaa), the dominant village idiom of successful migration. Several women's stories document their struggles, including the ultimate protest of a suicide attempt, to control the money they sent back to the village. In cases where women's work has bettered their family's economic standing in the village, women and their husbands and fathers enjoy new social privileges and authority. Finally, migration as an avenue of escape provides a new option for women caught in untenable home situations. By examining the gendered power dynamics of the microprocesses of social change, this paper explores the extent to which women's lives have and have not improved through migration. Close

• 4. [Article] Milk Teeth and Jet Planes: Kin Relations in Families of Sri Lanka’s Transnational Domestic Servants

  This essay examines the confluence of local and global dynamics, exploring how transnational migration affects and is affected by gender roles, kinship relations, intergenerational obligations, and ideologies ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Milk Teeth and Jet Planes: Kin Relations in Families of Sri Lanka’s Transnational Domestic Servants Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2008 This essay examines the confluence of local and global dynamics, exploring how transnational migration affects and is affected by gender roles, kinship relations, intergenerational obligations, and ideologies of parenthood. Journeying to the Middle East repeated on two-year labor contracts, many of Sri Lanka’s migrant housemaids leave behind their husbands and children. Women’s long-term absences reorganize and disrupt widely accepted gendered attributions of parenting roles, with fathers and female relatives taking over household tasks. Migrants say that economic difficulties prompt migration, and assess commitment to kin in financial terms. The government also benefits from remittances. Nevertheless, stakeholders (villagers, politicians, and the national media) worry about the social costs born by children. Drawing on interviews with the adult children of migrant mothers in four extended families in the Sri Lankan coastal village of Naeaegama, I examine the long-term effects of transnational labor migration on local households. I look into marital tensions between husbands and wives regarding domestic duties, and I consider emerging changes in intergenerational obligations. The case studies do not support media claims that children suffer abuse and neglect in their mothers’ absence, but do in part support survey information on reduced education, shifting marriage patterns, and paternal alcohol consumption. This paper contributes to the debate on the intersection of globalization and kinship studies, and explores the politics of representation at work in the discourse surrounding the social costs of migration. Title: Milk Teeth and Jet Planes: Kin Relations in Families of Sri Lanka’s Transnational Domestic Servants Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2008 This essay examines the confluence of local and global dynamics, exploring how transnational migration affects and is affected by gender roles, kinship relations, intergenerational obligations, and ideologies of parenthood. Journeying to the Middle East repeated on two-year labor contracts, many of Sri Lanka’s migrant housemaids leave behind their husbands and children. Women’s long-term absences reorganize and disrupt widely accepted gendered attributions of parenting roles, with fathers and female relatives taking over household tasks. Migrants say that economic difficulties prompt migration, and assess commitment to kin in financial terms. The government also benefits from remittances. Nevertheless, stakeholders (villagers, politicians, and the national media) worry about the social costs born by children. Drawing on interviews with the adult children of migrant mothers in four extended families in the Sri Lankan coastal village of Naeaegama, I examine the long-term effects of transnational labor migration on local households. I look into marital tensions between husbands and wives regarding domestic duties, and I consider emerging changes in intergenerational obligations. The case studies do not support media claims that children suffer abuse and neglect in their mothers’ absence, but do in part support survey information on reduced education, shifting marriage patterns, and paternal alcohol consumption. This paper contributes to the debate on the intersection of globalization and kinship studies, and explores the politics of representation at work in the discourse surrounding the social costs of migration. Close

• 5. [Article] Migrant Remittances, Population Ageing and Intergenerational Family Obligations in Sri Lanka

  As Sri Lanka’s population ages, its migrant women face a difficult choice: should they work abroad to remit money to provision their families, or should they stay at home to look after elderly kin? Although ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Migrant Remittances, Population Ageing and Intergenerational Family Obligations in Sri Lanka Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2015 As Sri Lanka’s population ages, its migrant women face a difficult choice: should they work abroad to remit money to provision their families, or should they stay at home to look after elderly kin? Although numerous studies have explored migration’s effects on children, fewer works focus on issues of elder care. This essay presents contextualizing information on transnational migration from Sri Lanka and the rapid ageing that is transforming the country’s population structure from a pyramid with many youth and few elders into a column. Using qualitative ethnographic data gathered from a labour-sending village in southern Sri Lanka, this anthropological essay considers social priorities around remittances and intergenerational family obligations for care work. Villagers make decisions about allocating able-bodied family members’ labour based on key concepts of filial duty, combined with an analysis of a family’s financial and social resources and the vulnerabilities of its members based on their gender and age. Critiquing assumptions about elders’ lack of economic activity, the essay notes their key role in facilitating labour migration. The data reveal the importance of gender roles, educational achievements, and generational shifts in evaluating emerging practices. In the future, intergenerational family obligations to mutual care will persist despite population aging. But as extended families shrink and care work grows more demanding, choices between elder care and migrant remittances will become more challenging. Title: Migrant Remittances, Population Ageing and Intergenerational Family Obligations in Sri Lanka Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2015 As Sri Lanka’s population ages, its migrant women face a difficult choice: should they work abroad to remit money to provision their families, or should they stay at home to look after elderly kin? Although numerous studies have explored migration’s effects on children, fewer works focus on issues of elder care. This essay presents contextualizing information on transnational migration from Sri Lanka and the rapid ageing that is transforming the country’s population structure from a pyramid with many youth and few elders into a column. Using qualitative ethnographic data gathered from a labour-sending village in southern Sri Lanka, this anthropological essay considers social priorities around remittances and intergenerational family obligations for care work. Villagers make decisions about allocating able-bodied family members’ labour based on key concepts of filial duty, combined with an analysis of a family’s financial and social resources and the vulnerabilities of its members based on their gender and age. Critiquing assumptions about elders’ lack of economic activity, the essay notes their key role in facilitating labour migration. The data reveal the importance of gender roles, educational achievements, and generational shifts in evaluating emerging practices. In the future, intergenerational family obligations to mutual care will persist despite population aging. But as extended families shrink and care work grows more demanding, choices between elder care and migrant remittances will become more challenging. Close

• 6. [Article] Money That Burns Like Oil: A Sri Lankan Cultural Logic of Morality and Agency

  New labor opportunities have drawn Sri Lankan women to work as domestic servants in the Middle East. Many migrants complain that their remittances "burn like oil," disappearing without a trace. The gendered ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Money That Burns Like Oil: A Sri Lankan Cultural Logic of Morality and Agency Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2004 New labor opportunities have drawn Sri Lankan women to work as domestic servants in the Middle East. Many migrants complain that their remittances "burn like oil," disappearing without a trace. The gendered discourse on burning remittances both draws on and contradicts an older cultural system that fetishizes money. The emerging logic provides symbolic resources for women to spend their remittances on advancements for the nuclear family, distancing themselves from other kin. (Migration, remittances, fetishism, Sri Lanka, Middle East) Title: Money That Burns Like Oil: A Sri Lankan Cultural Logic of Morality and Agency Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2004 New labor opportunities have drawn Sri Lankan women to work as domestic servants in the Middle East. Many migrants complain that their remittances "burn like oil," disappearing without a trace. The gendered discourse on burning remittances both draws on and contradicts an older cultural system that fetishizes money. The emerging logic provides symbolic resources for women to spend their remittances on advancements for the nuclear family, distancing themselves from other kin. (Migration, remittances, fetishism, Sri Lanka, Middle East) Close

• 7. [Article] Advocating for Sri Lankan Migrant Workers: Obstacles and Challenges

  Nearly a million Sri Lankan women labor as migrant workers, the vast majority in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in West Asia. They are poorly paid and vulnerable to a wide variety of exploitative ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Advocating for Sri Lankan Migrant Workers: Obstacles and Challenges Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2009 Nearly a million Sri Lankan women labor as migrant workers, the vast majority in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in West Asia. They are poorly paid and vulnerable to a wide variety of exploitative labor practices at home and abroad. Despite the importance of worker remittances to the national economy, and in spite of Sri Lanka’s history of organized labor and active political participation, migrants have received only anemic support from the state, labor unions, feminist organizations, and migrant-oriented nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The article contextualizes Sri Lankan migration within larger-scale economic dynamics (such as global capitalist policies and processes) and local-level ideological formations (such as local political histories and culturally shaped gender norms). The author argues that political freedoms in destination countries have a significant effect on organizing activities in both host and sending nations. Comparing the Sri Lankan and Philippine situations, the author contends that the vibrant activism in the Philippines correlates with the liberal organizing climates in the EU and in East and Southeast Asia, while the paucity of organizing in Sri Lanka correlate with the strict repression of guest workers in the GCC. Compared to other destinations, the GCC countries give workers (particularly women) less chance for autonomous activities, are less open to labor organizing, and are less responsive to political protest. Title: Advocating for Sri Lankan Migrant Workers: Obstacles and Challenges Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2009 Nearly a million Sri Lankan women labor as migrant workers, the vast majority in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in West Asia. They are poorly paid and vulnerable to a wide variety of exploitative labor practices at home and abroad. Despite the importance of worker remittances to the national economy, and in spite of Sri Lanka’s history of organized labor and active political participation, migrants have received only anemic support from the state, labor unions, feminist organizations, and migrant-oriented nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The article contextualizes Sri Lankan migration within larger-scale economic dynamics (such as global capitalist policies and processes) and local-level ideological formations (such as local political histories and culturally shaped gender norms). The author argues that political freedoms in destination countries have a significant effect on organizing activities in both host and sending nations. Comparing the Sri Lankan and Philippine situations, the author contends that the vibrant activism in the Philippines correlates with the liberal organizing climates in the EU and in East and Southeast Asia, while the paucity of organizing in Sri Lanka correlate with the strict repression of guest workers in the GCC. Compared to other destinations, the GCC countries give workers (particularly women) less chance for autonomous activities, are less open to labor organizing, and are less responsive to political protest. Close