The Making of “Passengers”: The Pre-Departure Subjectivation of Sri Lanka’s Aspiring Migrant Domestic Workers Heading to the Arabian Gulf

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I examine the process of migrant subject-making prior to departure based on the experiences of Sri Lankan women aspiring to become migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in the Arabian Gulf. Within a context of commodified, privatized and foreignized care migration regimes, women from developing countries have become “ideal” maids: cheap, docile and hardworking, they satisfy the growing social reproductive needs of more affluent countries. This image of the “ideal” MDW is re/produced, maintained and challenged through technologies of subject-making across the circuits of migration. In a combined public–private, local–transnational, and formal–informal thrust towards subject-making, different actors—including MDWs themselves—use different pre-departure technologies in a sociology of markets. Thus, passengers are carved out even before potential MDWs leave their home country; these passengers reflect different constructions, embodiments and connotations of “ideal” migrant subjects, where labour power is re/produced and exploited in the most intimate sphere.

KEYWORDS:

• “Ideal” migrant subjects
• migrant domestic labour
• pre-departure subjectivation
• Arabian Gulf
• Sri Lanka

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on research within the FWF Lise-Meitner Programme project: ““Ideal” Migrant Subjects: Domestic Service in Globalization” (M 2724-G) led by Wasana Handapangoda (applicant/chair) and Brigitte Aulenbacher (co-applicant/mentor), Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria (duration: 11/2019-04/2023). I am thankful to the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Lise-Meitner Programme for the financial support, and all the research participants and the Sri Lankan Embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for their valuable contribution to my study. Also, I am thankful to the Editors of Global Society and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and thoughtful comments, which significantly improved the quality and clarity of my manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The mother tongue of the Sinhalese (ethic majority) in Sri Lanka.

2 In Saudi Arabia, the minimum monthly salary for a Sri Lankan MDW is 1,250 Saudi Riyal (an amount equivalent to some US$250). Price control through minimum salary constitutes a form of state technology, through which MDWs’ market value and bodily goodness are regulated.

3 Runaways are blacklisted by the SLBFE, stripping them of the right to migrate to the Arabian Gulf for work.

4 Tamil is the native language of Sri Lankan Tamils and Muslims, who represent large minority groups.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Lise-Meitner Grant, The Austrian Science Fund (FWF): [Grant Number M 2724-G].

Notes on contributors

Wasana S. Handapangoda

Wasana Handapangoda has earned her doctoral degree in Global Society Studies from Doshisha University, Japan, in 2011. She is currently working as a visiting staff member in the Department of Development Studies of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Vienna, Austria. She was the principal investigator of the project, “Ideal” migrant subjects: Domestic service in globalisation, funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Lise-Meitner Grant, M 2724-G (11/2019–04/2023) in the Department for the Theory of Society and Social Analyses, Institute of Sociology, Johannes Kepler University, Austria. Her current research interests lie in migration and social reproductive labour, intersectionality and identity politics, minority studies and embodied methods.