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Abstract
This article examines the strategies that Filipina migrant domestic workers in Jordan have developed to create new opportunities within the restrictive Kafala migration system. Based on short-term live-in contracts, the Kafala system tends to confine migrant women to employers’ homes, thus restricting their access to urban amenities and limiting their interactions with co-ethnics. However, Filipina migrant domestic workers transform temporary migration into a longer-term experience by increasing their knowledge of the city and going from live-in workers to live-out or freelance workers. This article contributes to understandings of migrant women’s agency by considering the spatial construction of agency in urban spaces. I argue that space and agency are entwined. In order to highlight the spatial dimension of agency, I use the concept of ‘regime of visibility’ to show how migrant women make their agency visible to others by accessing public spaces. Connecting agency with regimes of visibility allows me to question the place and role of migrant women in urban public spaces. Especially, I analyze that tensions in public spaces are not merely a reaction to the presence of women, but are also intended to prevent the visibility of individual agency.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thanks Camille Schmoll and Nadine Cattan for their precious advices and encouragements throughout the redaction of this article. Thanks to all members of The French Research Center of Near East (IFPO) for their welcoming and support during my internship in Amman in 2013 and during my Ph.D. field work in 2017. A special thank also to Myriam Ababsa who provide the background map of the Figures 1 and 2. Many thanks to the peer reviewers which led to improve the document through their insightful feedback.