Finding a Home Away from Home: An Explorative Study on the Use of Social Space with the Voices of Foreign Domestic Workers in Hong Kong

Abstract

Being far away from friends and family, and sometimes facing hardships at work and in society, foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong have a strong need for access to social space to gather together and to empower each other. At the same time, social space can satisfy their needs for privacy, which has been stripped away from them due to the mandatory live-in rule in the employer’s home. In view of this, we devised an explorative case study to probe into the significance and usage patterns of social space by foreign domestic workers and report our findings using their own statements and experiences. We found that the dual-functional social space is an important physical attribute that aided the development of their social identity, and that they have achieved partial success in sharing—or taking over—the social space that was never intended for the sake of their well-being.

远离朋友和亲人, 有时面临着工作上和社会上的困难, 为了聚会和相互帮助, 在香港的外国工作人员强烈需要接触社会空间。同时, 在雇主家居住的规定剥夺了这些人员的隐私, 而社会空间可以满足这些人员对隐私的需求。为此, 我们设计了一个探索性的案例, 研究了社会空间对外国工作人员的重要性, 以及这些人员对社会空间的使用模式。用外国工作人员自己的陈述和经历, 本文汇报了研究结果。我们发现, 社会空间的双重功能是一种重要的自然属性, 能帮助这些人员形成社会身份。尽管没有自身利益的考虑, 这些人员部分实现了对社会空间的共享或占有。

Por la circunstancia de estar alejados de amigos y familiares, y a veces en trance de enfrentar adversidades en el trabajo y la sociedad, los trabajadores domésticos extranjeros de Hong Kong tienen fuerte necesidad de acceso al espacio social para reunirse y empoderarse unos a otros. Al mismo tiempo, el espacio social puede satisfacerles sus necesidades en privacidad, la cual les ha sido conculcada debido a la regla obligatoria de residir en la casa del empleador. En vista de esto, diseñamos un caso de estudio exploratorio para indagar por la significancia y patrones de uso del espacio social por los trabajadores domésticos extranjeros, y reportamos nuestros hallazgos valiéndonos de sus propias declaraciones y experiencias. Hallamos que el espacio social de funcionalidad dual ha sido un atributo físico importante que ayudó al desarrollo de su identidad social, y que ellos han logrado éxito parcial para compartir––o tomarlo––el espacio social que nunca fue planeado con el propósito expreso de su bienestar.

Key Words:

• foreign domestic workers
• Hong Kong
• privacy
• public space
• social identity
• social space

Keywords:

• 关键词：外国工作人员
• 香港
• 隐私
• 公共空间
• 社会身份
• 社会空间。

Keywords:

• Palabras clave: espacio público
• espacio social
• Hong Kong
• identidad social
• privacidad
• trabajadores domésticos foráneos

Acknowledgments

We thank Puiking Chan for her invaluable input at the early stages of this study, as well as all of the interviewees who agreed to share their unique stories with us.

Supplemental Material

Standard and corroborative questions of the semistructured interviews can be found on the publisher’s Web site.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge partial support by the Seed Fund for Basic Research (Project code 201903159006 and 201910159065) from the University of Hong Kong.

Notes on contributors

King Him Mok

KING HIM MOK was an Undergraduate Student in the Faculty of Science at The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong. E-mail: [email protected]. His research explores the possibilities and limitations of community facilities and public spaces for foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong.

Hung Chak Ho

HUNG CHAK HO is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong. E-mail: [email protected]. His research is concerned with urban health and well-being as well as social behaviors among vulnerable subpopulations in a spatial context.