https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5809-0702
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ABSTRACT
This paper discusses how online practices relate to empowering outcomes at individual and community levels. To understand the phenomenon in a natural setting, a virtual ethnography approach to Indonesian online domestic migrant workers’ communities was adopted to explore the empowerment of migrant domestic workers. The findings show that, at an individual level, migrant domestic workers need to engage in various practices, which contribute to their well-being. The well-being of migrants can be assessed in terms of their self-efficacy, self-esteem, reduced loneliness and reduced stress, all of which enhance their capabilities to take control over migration processes. But, as a community, they can conduct online practices that contribute to their ability to improve their communal external engagement. Community’s external engagement contributes to the awareness of their power and abilities to take action towards change. Online communities enable migrant domestic workers, who live in an isolated workplace, to penetrate the boundaries and engage in various practices that empower them as individuals and community as a whole.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a Ph.D. scholarship from the Directorate General for Higher Education (DGHE) on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Republic of Indonesia, which equally deserves our gratitude. The research was done as a QUT Ph.D. Project. Ethics approval, number 1200000225, was obtained prior to any data collection/analysis from the University Ethics Committee. The researchers would like to express a great appreciation to the Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers Community.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.