Spatial Agency and Occupation - (Edinburgh Studies in Urban Political Economy) by Evelyn Kwok

About the Book

Explores the resistance of a marginalised female migrant workforce through the intersection of space, economics and labour.

Book Synopsis

There are around 340,000 Foreign Domestic Workers in Hong Kong, but the ways in which they experience migration is largely hidden in the homes of their employers. This book helps us to understand the complexities of migrant experiences by analysing the socio-spatial consequences that emerge from global migrant labour, and examining the capacity of the disenfranchised to create new spatialities by using public space to resist their disempowerment. This approach gives voice to a phenomenon silenced by the hegemony of mainstream urban economics and, in turn, reveals practices that cut across global labour. By shedding light on the importance of space in moulding these practices and how these practices, in turn, shape space, Kwok demonstrates the power and limits of spatial agency in pushing back against the deleterious consequences of considering labour as another commodity, and reveals what lies behind the curtain of Hong Kong's 'successful' spatial capitalism.

Review Quotes

Spatial Agency and Occupation consolidates the trajectory of Evelyn Kwok's highly original theorising and meticulous research on the intersections of space, economics, gender and labour for over a decade. A powerful and moving analysis of the discipline and marginalisation of female migrant workers with unique insights into their resilience and everyday resistance. Interdisciplinary scholarship at its best!--Maggy Lee, The University of Hong Kong

This book offers an exceptional contribution to the fields of both migration and urban studies, as well as a complement to ethnographies of home. Kwok exemplifies the ethnographic sensibility and sensitivity needed when writing about voices from the urban margins, without ignoring the limits and challenges of representing these voices. Here lies the tension that is palpable when teaching and doing research from the 'margins'. How does one highlight the institutional structures that disempower and marginalize, while also illuminating the agency and resistance of the marginalized? By centering migrant domestic workers' experiences, Kwok transcends the boundaries between the centre and the periphery, the private and the public, the permanent temporariness of domestic migrant workers' legal status and their temporary, yet regular, enactment of agency through Sunday transformation of public spaces.--Mahardhika Sjamsoe'oed Sadjad "Housing Studies"

This is a remarkable book that provides valuable insights on migration, care, norms and the global political economy that shape the options, choices and experiences of Indonesian and Filipino migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. Kwok deftly interweaves the historical and structural discourses with personal narratives, thereby deepening our understanding of the underlying power relations and contradictory outcomes of migration policies. Her exploration of these workers' resourcefulness provides many food for thought regarding resilience and women's agency.--Maria S. Floro, American University, USA