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Abstract
Migrant domestic workers confront a multiplicity of difficulties and challenges. Within the ‘host’ context, some join religious groups that offer comfort by replicating the religion of home; others experiment with new religions or denominations that appeal to them within the modern global context; others ignore or reject religion altogether. This article offers an ethnographic analysis of the religious stories and activist experiences of four women migrant workers in Hong Kong. These women are not typical of the spectrum of religious possibilities facing Hong Kong's migrant workers, but each woman's tales point to the ways in which migratory experiences shape lives and religious perspectives in complex and unexpected ways. The migratory context provides new imaginative resources with which to reconsider religious perspectives, familial and gender expectations, reformulate pasts, and re-envision futures.
Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to Pnina Werbner, Mark Johnson, Claudia Liebelt, Kathryn Robinson and the ‘Disaporic Encounters, Sacred Journeys’ conference participants at Keele University (June 2009). I am deeply indebted to migrant workers, activists, friends, and colleagues in Hong Kong. Research funding for this project was provided by the School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pittsburgh.
Notes
1. Ninety-five per cent of Hong Kong's population is ethnic Chinese and among them Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are the most popular religions (loosely defined and often combined). Among Hong Kong's permanent population are also some 240,000 Roman Catholics, 300,000 Protestants, 80,000 Muslims, and smaller numbers of Sikhs, Jews, and Hindus. Hong Kong's Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim groups provide a range of educational and social services including medical clinics, elderly homes, and welfare programmes.
2. My earliest work among Filipina migrant domestic workers included analysis of how fundamentalist Christianity can deter women from activism, prompting them to ‘learn to love their employers’ and to prepare themselves for the rewards and blessings of the next life rather than dwelling on the difficulties of this one (Constable Citation1997).
3. Eni Lestari Andayani has requested that I use her real name. All other names of migrant workers are pseudonyms.
4. Fadima, a sister in Fareedah's group, converted to Islam to her parent's dismay when she attended the University in Mindanao. She married a Malaysian man whom she met on a visit to her sister in Malaysia. Years later, after he lost his wealth in the 1990s economic downturn and stopped supporting her and their children, she discovered that she was his second wife. Out of financial necessity she went to work in Saudi, selecting that location in the hope of deepening her faith. To her dismay, her Saudi employers were Muslim ‘only by birth’; they had little interest in religion and no intent to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, much less bring her along. Unhappy in Saudi, she arranged to work in Hong Kong, mainly because it pays well. Hong Kong, as it turned out, offered her what Saudi had not: an opportunity to deepen her faith. At first she attended El Shaddai church, then she shifted to Jesus is Lord, and then recently found her way to the Islamic Union where she has remained for the past year ‘rediscovering’ Islam. Another sister, Zina, was married to a Chinese non-Muslim Hong Kong resident and converted to Islam after their divorce. Subsequently her teenage sons converted. She had recently met an Egyptian man online. Lissa, like Fadima, had tried various charismatic churches but ultimately stuck with Islam because ‘it makes most sense’. Originally, she was introduced to Islam a decade ago by a Pakistani man. The relationship never developed, but she continued her commitment to Islam, leaning heavily on Sister Fareedah for support. Sister Fareedah's youngest biological sister married a Pakistani Hong Kong resident and is applying for residency but prefers to live with her employer than with her husband fulltime.