Read more
Drawing on ethnographic research conducted with the Thai migrant community in Hong Kong between 2016 and 2020, this book provides original insights into the complexity and diversity of identity negotiation, ethnicity navigation, and womanhood reinvention of Thai migrant women in Hong Kong. Allowing research to move beyond standard stories of victimized migrants and domestic workers by focusing on the increasing number of Southeast Asians moving into the middle-class, this ethnographic study of the everyday lived experience of Thai migrant women in Hong Kong will advance a new understanding of transnational migration and mobility at the intersections of gender, ethnicity, class, generation, and religion. This book illustrates the influence of transnationalism and multiculturalism on migrant women's meaning-making and accentuates the importance of diversity within a migrant population - in particular, the importance of maintaining an intersectional perspective to understand the broader phenomenon of contemporary middle-class and professional migration within Southeast Asia.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Starting the Journey.- 2.Investigating Migrant Women in Hong Kong: Toward an Intersectional Analysis Approach.- 3. Establishing the Ethnographic Study of Thai Migrant Women in Hong Kong.- 4. Transnational Migration and Identity Negotiation: Under the Gaze of Buddhism.- 5. Navigating the Ethnic Boundary: From "In-Between" to Plural Ethnicities.- 6. Reinventing Transnational Womanhood: In the Journeys of Migrant Women.- 7. Conclusion: Moving Beyond.
About the author
Herbary Cheung is an incoming Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and a Research Associate at Institut de Recherche sur l'Asie du Sud-Est Contemporaine (IRASEC), France. He is the awardee of the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme and Ernst Mach Grant. His research engages with gender and migration, family, marriage and health, intersectionality, and feminist research methods by focusing on Hong Kong-Southeast Asia connections.
