Born Out of Place ─ Migrant Mothers and the Politics of International Labor

Hong Kong is a meeting ground for migrant domestic workers, traders, refugees, asylum seekers, temporary laborers, tourists, and local residents. At the heart of this book are the stories and experiences of migrant mothers from Indonesia and the Philippines, their South Asian, African, Chinese and Western expatriate partners, and their Hong Kong born babies. Constable gives voice to the migrant mothers in this Asian world city and, in the process, she raises the deceptively simple point that that they must be understood as people with rights, not just workers. This rich and accessible ethnography provides insight into global problems of mobility, family and citizenship, and points to the consequences, creative responses, melodramas, and tragedies of labor and migration policies.

Nicole Constable is Director of Asian Studies and Professor of Anthropology in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and Research Professor in the University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages and Made to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Migrant Workers.