Abstract
This article examines the contested meaning of home in shaping the sexual subjectivities of Indonesian migrant domestic workers by investigating their imagined future home. It points to the question of how individuals negotiate their sexualities when subjected to particular gendered positions. The author suggests that a transnational perspective is needed for understanding the sexuality of migrant women, who negotiate between the same-sex pleasure they obtain in Hong Kong and the family expectations they are supposed to fulfill in Indonesia. For these migrant women, sexuality is malleable because it is a continuing process of relating gendered positions to sexualities, and relating the future to the present.
In feminist and queer studies, home has been a focus for understanding the power dynamics and negotiations between heteronormative family expectations and the desires of female or queer subjects (see, for instance, Fortier, 2001; Mohanty and Martin, 2003). In my own anthropological research on female same-sex relationships among Indonesian migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Hong Kong, I found that the variegated meanings of home were a concern when expressing their views on their relationships. Because labor migration is often assumed to be of a temporary nature (Lindquist, 2009), MDWs are expected to return home one day; therefore, they commonly imagine their future home to be in Indonesia, not Hong Kong. These women’s imaginings of home matter because, as noted by anthropologist Arjun Appadurai (2002), imagination has acquired a new power in social life and can direct people to pursue new meanings of life.
This article aims to contextualize the MDWs’ imaginings of home by examining how the intersections of gendered subjectivity (i.e. masculine-identified or feminine-identified) and marital status in Indonesia shape their lives in Hong Kong, and how and where they consider their future lives to be located. I show that for same-sex desiring women, the process of imagining home past, present and future does not necessarily assume it as a universal patriarchy, i.e. something to escape from. As noted by scholars such as Gayatri Gopinath (2005), Martin Manalansan (2002), Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (2001), there is a tendency among researchers to represent home as a heteronormative locale in which female and queer subjects are oppressed or forced to leave in order to be liberated. The problem with this representation is that it does not give thought to the cultural specificities that female and queer subjects face in particular locales and across them, throughout the life course. In the context of queer Asia, Evelyn Blackwood and Mark Johnson (2012) address the complexity of Asian queer subjectivities beyond the Western model of a binary of heterosexuality and homosexuality, and a public discourse of identity politics based on it. Responding to these critiques, this article focuses on the cultural specificities that domestic workers face through the ethnographic lens examining their imaginings of home, and I suggest these sensibilities have a queer potential for change and autonomy in these women’s lives.
Migrant domestic workers and their same-sex relationships
The general social tolerance of lesbian and gay people in Hong Kong has improved greatly in the recent decade or so. First, the Hong Kong government established the Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Unit in 2005 for promoting equal opportunities of different sexual orientations. Second, the Hong Kong local media holds a rather liberal attitude when reporting lesbian relationships in Hong Kong (for details, see Lai, 2014). This social change has also been reflected in employers’ changing attitudes toward lesbian MDWs. In her study of Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong in the 1990s, Nicole Constable (1997) observed that some Filipina domestic workers dressed in a masculine style of dress. This masculine style was often considered acceptable by female employers. However, a homophobic atmosphere began in 1996 when a television documentary quoted one Filipina who estimated that a quarter of all Filipina domestic workers are lesbians (Constable, 1997). Amy Sim (2010), in her research on Indonesian domestic workers conducted from 2002 to 2005, noted the change of the employers’ attitudes in that there was an increasing number of openly lesbian domestic workers accepted by their employers.
As of 2014, there were approximately 150,000 Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong; this amounts to 45 per cent of the total number of MDWs according to the Immigration Department, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (2014). On Sundays, thousands of them gather and socialize in Victoria Park. Through the connection with a labor union formed by Indonesian workers in Hong Kong, I located a moderen dance group (moderen is an Indonesian word for ‘modern’; the moderen dance groups perform K-Pop dance moves). Participating in their events, I was fascinated by the openness and visibility of same-sex relationships among the 30 members. They openly expressed intimate behavior, including holding hands, hugging, and kissing on lips. They did not hide the fact that they were in a type of same-sex relationship common in Indonesian society, whereby a masculine-identified woman (tomboi) and a feminine-identified woman (cewek, an Indonesian word for girl) are clearly distinguishable (see Blackwood, 2010; Sim, 2010).
It is important to note here that the gender difference within a same-sex relationship also constitutes these domestic workers’ sexual subjectivities. The same-sex relationships are gendered: in a couple, one identifies with a masculine gender, tomboi, and the other one identifies with a feminine gender, cewek. They embody their genders through appearance, behavior, and desire for the opposite gender – tomboi desires cewek; cewek desires tomboi. Although tomboi and cewek are both female-bodied individuals, it would be inaccurate to prioritize their same-sex desires over their gender differences. As Evelyn Blackwood (2010) has noted, the gender difference between the Indonesian tomboi in West Sumatra, Indonesia, and their feminine partners is clearly marked by them. Therefore, and following Peter Jackson’s (2000) notion of eroticized genders, personal identification either as tomboi or cewek is simultaneously erotic and gendered.
This article is based on my PhD dissertation on Indonesian migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong who have same-sex relationships (Lai, 2014). The field data was gathered in Hong Kong between 2010 and 2012, when I collected life stories through participant observation and in-depth interviews with 43 Indonesian MDWs. The dialogue that I carried out with the migrant workers is a mix of Indonesian, English and Cantonese. 1
Home and heteronormativity
In Indonesia, the concept of home has to be understood in relation to marital status. Young unmarried adults, both men and women, reside with their parents (Nobles and Buttenheim, 2008). Therefore, to unmarried women, home is their parents’ home. For women who are over the age of 25, they are expected to get married and form a separate household with their husband and children (Naafs, 2013). To married women, home is the household where they live with their husband and children (Nilan, 2008).
Although the living arrangements of women (i.e. where they live, and who they live with) are tightly regulated, some women are able to negotiate the expectation and live with their female partner as long as the couples remain silent about their lesbian relationship and do not demand formal or public recognition of any kind. Saskia Wieringa (2007) has noted that there is a female same-sex community in Jakarta (the capital of Indonesia), comprised of several hundred lower-class women, who are mostly first-generation immigrants from other islands. Couples live together and these living arrangements are accepted by the neighbors. The neighbors call the masculine partners ‘uncle’; the feminine partners are regarded as normal women and participate in the women’s neighborhood activities. Among several of the couples, they take care of children who are from earlier marriages. Although the neighbors may well understand that these living arrangements are unusual, there is no condemnation as long as the couples do not speak out about their lesbian relationships. Wieringa’s study shows that there are different definitions and levels of normality at play in Indonesian society.
Urbanization and women’s increasing participation in economic life through work, contribute to the formation of women’s same-sex communities. In part, this is because labor migration to cities like Jakarta provides a valid reason for women to live outside their parental home (Wieringa, 2007). However, it remains unlikely that same-sex desiring women who are already living in the parental home will establish a separate household with a same-sex partner. In her study on female same-sex relationships in Padang, a metropolitan area in Sumatra, Blackwood (2010) found that only two couples, out of her 22 informants, lived together. Although the couples were cohabiting, other kin members were also living with them. The couples were not suspected of being lesbians due to the prevalent homosocial activities in the larger Southeast Asian context, where two women sharing a bed would not necessarily be associated with lesbianism (Blackwood, 2010; Sinnott, 2004). The couples in Blackwood’s study successfully hid their same-sex relationship by not showing any intimate behavior in front of their kin members.
In Indonesia then, the concept of home is heteronormatively structured around the institution of kinship and social tradition of marriage and childbearing, i.e. father–mother–children; this is naturalized to the extent that same-sex relationship may go undetected.
Memories of home
Before examining the imaginings of home projected by the MDWs, it is important to understand their views of their actual home in Indonesia. In the process of labor migration and after experiencing same-sex relationships in Hong Kong, their feelings toward home in Indonesia might have changed. These changed emotions and views are important to analyze here because they influence decisions about whether to return to their original heteronormative home or to establish a separate household, and hence a new home, with a female partner.
In this respect, the migrant women are concerned with (1) their relationship with parents, (2) their relationships with the community (i.e. relatives and neighbors), and also (3) their relationship with their husband and children, when they voice their feelings about home in Indonesia. I discuss each of these concerns in the following.
(1) Relationship with parents
My research found that the MDWs highly valued their relationships with parents. However, as they believed that their parents would not accept their same-sex relationship and would be very angry if they found out, they would hide their relationships in order to maintain a good relationship with their parents. A common view was that a female romantic partner would become a source of dispute with their parents if known, and it was better to hide this part of their lives than risk upset and worse.
Without intentionally revealing their same-sex relationship to their parents, three women said that their parents had reprimanded them due to rumors or suspicions that they were in a same-sex relationship. Two of the three said that their former girlfriends retaliated against them by calling their parents in Indonesia.
Michelle (32, cewek, unmarried) recalled: My ex was awful! She called my parents and told them that I am a lesbian. That’s why my parents know [that I am a lesbian]. Now whenever I call my parents, they’d check on me and ask, ‘Are you still a lesbian?’ I just lie and tell them that I am looking for guys.
Similarly, the suspicions of the parents of another woman in my study became aroused when she showed pictures to them which featured a tomboi. A confrontation ensued, her parents asking whether she was in love with a tomboi in Hong Kong. This, she immediately denied, although she had had a tomboi partner in Hong Kong for almost two years. These examples illustrate the common strategic practice vis à vis parents, and the importance of maintaining good relationships with them.
(2) Relationships with the community
The MDWs in my study held the common view that neighbors and relatives in their home villages liked to gossip, particularly about women’s sexual morality. According to the Indonesian moral value system, the body and sexuality of women do not belong to them, but to their families. According to Islamic beliefs, fathers are the moral guardian of their unmarried daughters (Bennett, 2005). In this context, parents would be the objects of defamation if they failed to control their daughters. So the women were concerned about gossip not only because they were the object of such defamation, but also because this would bring shame on their parents. In this context, the ultimate effect of gossiping is to put pressure on parents to maintain or take control of the sexual purity of their unmarried daughters, and hence family and social honor more generally.
Yanis (27, cewek, married) shared her memory of home: In Indonesia, I feel like I can’t do anything. It’s so easy to get criticized for something or people talk behind your back. In Indonesia, you have to be on best behavior. If you did something that doesn’t seem quite right, people will point their finger at you. They’ll talk about you … I had several male friends when I was in high school. Sometimes, the boys came over to my place. But actually, boys and girls should not hang out together. My neighbors were saying behind my back, ‘That Yanis has men hanging out at her house every single day.’
Although Yanis’s memory of home was not directly related to same-sex relationships but to the normative expectations of women in general, she had already considered her same-sex relationship as a violation of the heteronormative expectations in the community. She did not think that the relationship would ever meet the approval of those in her village.
Samuel (30, tomboi, unmarried) maintained a close relationship with her mother, and would call home regularly. When her same-sex relationship in Hong Kong was getting stable, Samuel disclosed it to her mother over the phone because she really wanted her mother to know about it. Although her parents had already accepted her same-sex sexuality, Samuel imagined that her home village would not be receptive to her same-sex relationship. Samuel is the only woman in this study whose parents have accepted her same-sex relationship. Samuel said: In Indonesia, living with my parents … well [Samuel sighs] I would be fine but the community would not like it. They wouldn’t accept it. Anyway, Ahan [Samuel’s girlfriend] and I are moving somewhere farther from our families.
(3) Relationship with husband and children
Twelve women in my study were or had been married. I identified two major reasons for these women to leave their husband and go to work overseas. The first reason was that working overseas provided them with a legitimate opportunity to leave their husband in Indonesia. Two of the women said that they had been physically abused by their husband. Another two indicated they were pressured by their family to marry their husband, even though they did not love him. These four women knew that working overseas would be a feasible way for them to leave their husband, and simultaneously support themselves. Therefore, they decided to work in Hong Kong.
The second reason was that they wanted to improve the living standards of their husbands and children in Indonesia by working as a MDW in Hong Kong. Not only would they be paying for the daily expenses of their family, but they also aimed to save money to buy a house in Indonesia. They were at first very committed to this plan, and regularly remitted money back to their husbands. However, upon discovering the husbands’ affairs they terminated sending any further funds to support their husbands. Formally speaking, Indonesian Marriage Law permits a man to take a second wife, but this requires court approval and permission from the first wife (Rinaldo, 2011). The marriage law reflects that Indonesian society generally prioritizes the ideal of monogamous marriage over the practice of polygamy. In lieu of this, the MDWs in this study were naturally upset about their husbands’ affairs. Still, only one of them officially divorced. The others explained that they did not return to Indonesia since finding out about the affairs, thereby implying that seeking a formal divorce mattered less.
Seven of the married women were mothers. Two said that their husbands were caring for their children while they were away. The other five said that their own parents were the caretakers of their children. Interestingly, the relationships with children were very different between these two groups of mothers. The two mothers (Iman, 32, tomboi, and Lestari, 35, cewek) whose children were being cared for by their husbands, said that they had very limited or even no contact with their children because their husbands forbade any phone contact with them. Their husbands had already established new households with other women, and the children were cared for by the new households. Since the children had new ‘moms’, the husbands did not want their first wives to call anymore. Lestari said that her husband had changed his home phone number, and her 10-year-old son did not own a cellphone. She had consequently not been in touch with her son for a few years already. Iman was somewhat more fortunate in that her daughter was already in high school, and so she sent money directly back to her daughter to buy a cellphone. Iman could therefore call and be in touch with her daughter regularly.
A third group was those women whose children were being cared for by their own parents, and they typically enjoyed very close relationships with their children. They fulfilled the role of a good mother by regularly calling their children, sending sufficient money back home for their school fees and daily expenses, and also by bringing expensive gifts (e.g. laptops) from Hong Kong to Indonesia during their contract-end holidays. These transnational mothers provided both emotional and material support to their children.
Moreover, these mothers also allowed their female partners to converse with their children over the phone, thereby establishing informal chosen kinship connections alongside the public heteronormative ones. These children’s ages ranged from a few years old to 12. The mothers introduced their female partner as one of their close friends in Hong Kong to their children, and so the children would not know about their mother’s same-sex relationship. The female partners also showed their love and care for these children by conversing with them over the phone and sending gifts to them.
Imaginings of home
When talking about their future life and same-sex relationships, therefore, MDWs tended to express two conflicting viewpoints. The first was that they wanted to maintain their same-sex relationship after returning to Indonesia, and the second view was that they would likely end their same-sex relationship. Neither view was dominant among the women in my study, although there was a slight difference in the number of respondents who held these two views.
In the following, I illustrate that the different imaginings of home are not merely individual projections of home, but reflect how sexuality is intersected with gendered positions more broadly. In turn, this points to the question of how individuals negotiate their sexualities when subjected to particular gendered positions, especially as married or unmarried, and as a tomboi or cewek.
(1) The married women
Among the women who wanted to live with their female partner upon their return to Indonesia, half of them were married women. As I have discussed in the previous section, all the married women in this study, except for one who was a newlywed, were not happy with their husbands because of extramarital affairs. Based on the stories provided by the women, I categorized the affairs of their husbands into two types. The first type was one in which the men did not have any children with their new partners, and the second was where the men have had children with their new partners and already established a separate household with them. The principal difference between the two types of affairs is that the women whose husbands are involved in the latter type of affair are not subjected to significant social control because these men are actually afraid of their first wives who have the legal right to report their extramarital affairs to the court. As children are involved, they present the strongest evidence of the adultery, and therefore the men do not want to be in touch with their first wives at all.
I would suggest that the women whose husbands are involved in the second type of affair are in a liminal status. By liminal status, I mean that the women are formally speaking married, but their husbands do not want them back and are afraid that they will notify the authorities. These women are therefore able to enjoy a high level of autonomy because they are subjected to a minimal level of familial surveillance. Iman (32, tomboi, married) and Lestari (35, cewek, married) were a couple whose husbands were involved in this type of affair. As married women, Lestari and Iman experienced a very low level of surveillance from their natal families because they had already moved out of their parental homes. Since both of their husbands had affairs with other women, Lestari and Iman were not willing to return to them. Fortunately, their husbands also did not want them to come back. Subjected to this liminal situation, Lestari and Iman were able to imagine a future of living together.
Not surprisingly perhaps, whereas they were planning to live together, neither Iman nor Lestari would announce themselves as lesbians after returning to Indonesia. Rather, they wanted to comply with heteronormative expectations; they feared the consequences of rupturing the social harmony, causing tension with their families back home. So when they talked to their natal families on the phone, about their plans to move to the large Indonesian city Kediri, they omitted any direct references to the nature of their relationship. My findings confirm the earlier research of Blackwood (2010) and Wieringa (2007), namely that two women forming a household is socially acceptable as long as the couple does not speak out about their homoerotic relationship.
(2) The unmarried ones: Tomboi and cewek
The MDWs who said they would not continue their same-sex relationship after returning to Indonesia were unmarried, and included seven tombois and eight cewek. These women’s imagined future emphasized their problematic subject position as unmarried daughter and, hence, the expectations of marriage. Although their imagination of home was confined within a heteronormative framework, it would be inaccurate to interpret home as a universal patriarchy, assuming no personal autonomy or lesbian possibilities. In the following, I will explain this by discussing the case of how unmarried tombois and cewek tacitly negotiated the heteronormative ideal of home, without openly subverting it.
The tombois told me that they did not experience any physical attraction to men. Although many tombois dated boys during their school years, they said they did not really like men. For example, they would say that they did not let their former boyfriends even kiss them, but would always want to kiss and touch their girlfriends in Hong Kong. Although the tombois lacked any physical attraction to men, those who were still unmarried said that they would marry after returning to Indonesia.
Unmarried tombois therefore expressed ambivalent feelings about their future. They perceived marriage as a kind of family obligation imposed by their parents. Thus, they were in a dilemma, caught between the expectation to marry, lack of desire for men and, by contrast, their desire for women. They would therefore try to avoid marriage by prolonging their stay in Hong Kong; they convinced their parents that they wanted to earn more money and therefore had no plans for marriage.
This strategy of resistance usually worked for younger tombois, but not for those who were already over 30 years old. Leo, who was already 31 at the time of my fieldwork, and had been working in Hong Kong for 9 years, felt significantly pressured by her mother, who asked her to return home and marry. Leo shared her ambivalent vision of the future: I call my mom once a week. Every time I call her, she asks me to go back to Indonesia and get married. Before, I had to send a lot of money home to my family. So, my mom did not ask me to go back. But [my family] has already bought a house. I also gave money to my younger brother to operate his own business. Another younger brother also finished school which I paid for. He has a job now. My family does not need that much money from me. So, my mom always keeps asking me to go home. But I can’t make up my mind. I keep asking myself, ‘should I go home? What about my future? Should I marry some guy?’ I haven’t found anyone that I like yet. Actually, I have never been in love with any man. I am afraid of getting married. If I have to get married, I am afraid of not knowing how to get along with a man. I don’t know anything about men. What will it be like if I’m in a relationship with a man?
Although Leo understands that she cannot further prolong her stay in Hong Kong, she is aware that she still has the power to refuse marriage if she could not find any man that she is in love with. The idea of ‘romantic love’, that a desirable marriage should be based on mutual love and passion, became popular in Indonesia after the 1970s, and Indonesian women have enjoyed increasing autonomy in choosing their marriage partner (Nurmila, 2009). Subject to this discourse, Leo did not think that her mother would arrange a marriage and force her to marry a man. Leo told me, ‘My mother said that I must be in love with the man.’ In turn, Leo was able to negotiate a postponement of marriage by manipulating the modern discourse of romantic love.
Cewek, unlike their counterpart tombois, do not deny their desire for men. At the time of my fieldwork, 4 out of the 11 unmarried cewek had boyfriends in Indonesia. They were eager to marry after returning to Indonesia. For young women in Indonesia, marriage and children are viewed as a rite of passage to reach womanhood (Bennett, 2005), and the unmarried cewek in this study identify with this ideal type of womanhood.
In one way, the unmarried cewek would appear to be docile bodies within dominant kinship norms because they were intent on following the dominant path of becoming wives and mothers. At the same time, they improvised a strategy that involved a verbal agreement with their tombois lovers that their relationships were only restricted to their time and life in Hong Kong. All of them told their lovers that they would terminate the same-sex relationship after they return home to Indonesia.
Michelle said that Eddy, her tomboi partner, had already agreed that they would separate when Michelle had to go home: I like being with Eddy because she is like a man and takes care of me. I feel good about this relationship because Eddy and I have already agreed that we will begin in Hong Kong and end in Hong Kong. Later, after I go back to Indonesia, we will break up because I want to be with a man. I hope I can forget about being a lesbian when I am back in Indonesia. Now … [pausing and thinking for a short period of time] I think it’s like half and half. Because my boyfriend [her fiancé] is about the rest of my life. Allen is only here … Allen has a family too. She has a son. I can’t see us continuing [in Indonesia]. I have to go home. I was honest with her and up front with everything. She said that she was okay with it before we started [the relationship].
Although both the unmarried tombois and cewek considered home as a place that upheld heteronormative, and to some extent, constraining values, their stories reveal the complex meaning of home – patriarchal in nature but allowing room for negotiation. For instance, the unmarried cewek were entirely prepared to follow a heterosexual path upon their return to Indonesia. However, in doing so, they were not simply docile bodies under patriarchy because they enjoyed their current same-sex relationship in Hong Kong while, at the same time, they looked forward to marriage in Indonesia. They did not entirely follow the patriarchal value that confines respectable sexuality of women to marriage, but also explored same-sex relationships in Hong Kong. How about the tombois? The unmarried tombois were ambivalent about their future because they did not want to enter into a marriage due to their lack of interest in men. Therefore, they negotiated ways to delay marriage by prolonging their stay in Hong Kong or manipulating the emerging modern ideals of romantic love. I hope that the above discussions have deepened current ethnographic discussions of home, as well as sensibilities and imaginaries of love and desire, through unpacking the felt experience of home, and as a concept.
Conclusion
In this article, I have suggested that a transnational perspective that looks comparatively at current, past, and future locations of ‘home’ – imagined and otherwise – can help us to better understand the sexual subjectivities and same-sex oriented gendered sensibilities of Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong. The explicit demand to return to Indonesia provokes the women in this study to reconsider their sexuality yet again. By this, I mean that they negotiate between the same-sex pleasures that they enjoy in Hong Kong and the social and family expectations that they are supposed to fulfill upon their return to Indonesia. Their desire to live with a woman or a man in the future is shaped by their gendered positions (i.e. marital status: married or unmarried; gender identification: tomboi or cewek) and perceptions of the changing circumstances. In this way, their imaginings of home see sexuality as an on-going process of negotiation between the pleasure of same-sex relationships in Hong Kong, on the one hand, and memories of past home and longings for a future home life back in Indonesia, on the other. For these domestic workers, sexuality cannot be encapsulated into a stable, inner sexual identity. Rather, sexuality is malleable because it is a continuing process of relating gendered positions to sexualities, and relating the future to the present across different locations of home.
This article has argued how these migrant women’s imaginings of home have specific and contextualized meanings that shape their sexual subjectivities. This process of imagination has empowered some of the women to think beyond the heteronormative expectations imposed on them. About half of the women decided that they would continue their same-sex relationship and establish a separate household with their girlfriend after permanently returning to Indonesia. They were inspired to move to urban areas in Indonesia with their partner, but without telling their family about their same-sex relationship. The new experiences and relationships in Hong Kong transformed their original living arrangements in Indonesia, and they had no desire to live with their parents or with their husband again.
It is important to bear in mind that the Indonesian meaning of home is, as in many places, not simply a place for eating and resting. It is more about the relationships between people, inside the family but perhaps particularly relevant for the domestic workers I have studied, the relationships with neighbors. In less urban and rural areas where temporary residents such as labor migrants are less common, neighbors tend to know each other well. The relationships thus constitute a sort of social surveillance system. As noted by Yanis, for example, her neighbors reported to her father when they saw that male friends were visiting her. In order to avoid this kind of social surveillance, domestic workers in my study said that they would move to the larger cities upon their return to Indonesia. However, unlike many of their counterparts in Euro-American societies, none were planning to out themselves as lesbians when they returned. The married women in a liminal status – meaning that their husband did not want them back because they had already had children with another woman – enjoyed considerable autonomy over their future life because they were free from the control of both their husband as well as their parents.
The other half of the women, however, did not consider living with another woman as a feasible option upon their return to Indonesia, which for them implied that they would return to a heterosexual family life as well. I have argued that their imagined return to heterosexuality should not be interpreted as a betrayal of their sexual and romantic preference as such. Rather, I have shown that these cases are good examples of how individuals would remake the meaning of home across their life course, depending on changing emotional, social and economic circumstances. These practices would often follow gendered conventions along the cewek/tomboi axis but not in a straightforward heteronormative manner. Whilst the cewek foregrounded the patriarchal nature of home and expected to marry and obey a husband, many cewek did not confine their sexual and intimate lives to marriage but secretly enjoyed relationships with tombois in Hong Kong. Therefore, it is overly simplistic to assume that cewek are docile bodies although they claim that they would give up their tomboi partners after they get married. To the cewek, home is not an absolute patriarchy but allows personal desires as long as they do not publicly subvert the ideal of heteronormativity.
This article has presented nuanced ethnographic case studies of the variegated experiences and transnational understandings of sexual subjectivities, in the lives of Indonesian domestic workers located in Hong Kong. In sum, the decision to continue or end a same-sex relationship in Hong Kong is heavily influenced by their imaginings of home in Indonesia, their gendered positions and their relationship with family members in Indonesia. These processes we could conceive as queer sensibilities in the sense that to the women whose lives I have studied, sexuality is experienced as malleable because it is a continuing process of relating gendered positions to an array of positionalities in flux, including, economic life and family obligations, as well as relating the future to the present and the past.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the commercial, public, or not-for-profit sectors.