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• 1. [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

• 2. [Article] Book Review of, Pei-Chia Lan. <i>Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan</i>

  Reviews the book "Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan," by Pei-Chia Lan.

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: Book Review of, Pei-Chia Lan. <i>Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan</i> Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2009 Reviews the book "Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan," by Pei-Chia Lan. Title: Book Review of, Pei-Chia Lan. <i>Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan</i> Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2009 Reviews the book "Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan," by Pei-Chia Lan. Close

• 3. [Article] In the Wake of the Gulf War: Assessing Family Spending of Compensation Money in Sri Lanka

  Between 1997 and 2000, the United Nations Compensation Commission delivered US$ 4000 apiece to roughly 87,000 Sri Lankan citizens who suffered displacement and loss of employment due to Iraq’s military ...

  Citation × Citation Citation Abstract Copy Title: In the Wake of the Gulf War: Assessing Family Spending of Compensation Money in Sri Lanka Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2003 Between 1997 and 2000, the United Nations Compensation Commission delivered US$ 4000 apiece to roughly 87,000 Sri Lankan citizens who suffered displacement and loss of employment due to Iraq’s military actions in Kuwait during the Gulf War. Using qualitative ethnographic data, this essay examines eleven case studies of Kuwait returnees in the village of Naeaegama, in southern Sri Lanka. Like the majority of Sri Lankans caught in the Gulf War, these returnees are women from poor rural families who worked as domestic servants in Kuwait. The essay compares how the eleven households have spent compensation money and migrants’ remittances. Spending choices reveal a clear hierarchy of priorities: buying land and building a house, providing a dowry for unmarried women, and starting a viable business. These goals reflect family-based considerations, and use of the money illustrates the family’s role as an economic as well as a social unit. The essay also explores the role of family in facilitating migration and depressing women’s wages on the global market. Data reveal the local values, motives, and cultural contexts that shape individual and family decision-making on matters of finance and migration. Family choices are products of and adaptations to globalized contexts. Title: In the Wake of the Gulf War: Assessing Family Spending of Compensation Money in Sri Lanka Author: Gamburd, Michele Ruth Year: 2003 Between 1997 and 2000, the United Nations Compensation Commission delivered US$ 4000 apiece to roughly 87,000 Sri Lankan citizens who suffered displacement and loss of employment due to Iraq’s military actions in Kuwait during the Gulf War. Using qualitative ethnographic data, this essay examines eleven case studies of Kuwait returnees in the village of Naeaegama, in southern Sri Lanka. Like the majority of Sri Lankans caught in the Gulf War, these returnees are women from poor rural families who worked as domestic servants in Kuwait. The essay compares how the eleven households have spent compensation money and migrants’ remittances. Spending choices reveal a clear hierarchy of priorities: buying land and building a house, providing a dowry for unmarried women, and starting a viable business. These goals reflect family-based considerations, and use of the money illustrates the family’s role as an economic as well as a social unit. The essay also explores the role of family in facilitating migration and depressing women’s wages on the global market. Data reveal the local values, motives, and cultural contexts that shape individual and family decision-making on matters of finance and migration. Family choices are products of and adaptations to globalized contexts. Close

• 4. [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

• 5. [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