| Most of the studies on domestic service focus on interpersonal dynamics between employers and domestics within households of employment. A few studies look at how state policies shape household politics and intrude in family dynamics under the context of globalization. Yet, hardly any studies examine how the process of nationalization has configured the experiences of domestic workers as well as shaped the relationship between families and service providers. That is, the linkage between household and nationalist politics under the context of globalization has not been fully explored.; My dissertation is a study of Filipina domestics in Taiwan. I argue that, with the legalization of foreign domestics, domestic service has emerged as an object of ideological production and as a field of management in Taiwan. Certain discourses have emerged as part of the instruments for control and discipline over foreign domestics. Similar to the ideological production of foreign workers as “others,” foreign domestics are also constructed as a particular category, with essential and distinctive characteristics. This discursive production aims at constructing foreign domestics as a necessary evil, undesirably different from native Taiwanese yet essential to Taiwanese families. I contend that this process of othering is central to state practices of control and exclusion. The control over foreign domestics at home reflects the state's anxiety over a changing demographic landscape as well as the future contour of the nation.; However, the process of othering and state practices of control are not hegemonic and deterministic. Competing productions of identities exist in local contexts. Filipina domestics are engaged in discourses and practices of resistance, both within individual Taiwanese households and within the church. Through discourses and practices of resistance, they construct their individual and collective identities. I argue that the construction of individual and collective identities among Filipina domestics is linked with the development of nationhood in Taiwan.; In short, the case of Filipina domestics in Taiwan enables us to understand the linkage between household and nationalist politics. The state continues to mediate the local effects of the globalization of domestic service. Home-making and nation-building are simultaneous processes within the context of globalization. |
