Negotiating social location as a workplace strategy: Gorkhali women migrant domestic workers and South Asian employers in Bangkok

ABSTRACT

Social location involves multiple axes of gender, work, ethnicity, migration status, age and access to networks; and can be manipulated when the individual determines to change it. These axes of differentiation interact with social hierarchies in different ways to change a person’s social location. Using the social location and intersectionality frameworks, this paper analyses the choices and strategies used by Burmese Gorkha migrant domestic workers in Thailand to manage their workplace relationships. Migrant domestic workers are in a precarious status because of their legal status as migrants and because of the employment relations with their employers. The study finds that Gorkhali migrant workers chose their employers so that they are able to negotiate using their ethnic status. By foregrounding their ethnicity, they are able to obtain certain social location vis-à-vis their employers. However, this strategy can be used only for a certain group of employers and therefore, Burmese Gorkha migrant domestic workers choose to work with such employers even when the pay is lower than that of other groups of employers. Gorkhali migrant domestic workers’ engagements and interactions with their employers are shaped by economic, ethnic and gendered power relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Social location
• gender and ethnicity
• intersectional analysis
• Burmese Gorkha
• migrant domestic workers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This paper uses the term Burmese Gorkha to capture the nationality as well as ethnicity of the respondents. They refer to themselves as Gorkhali, and hence the term is retained in direct quotes as well as while referring to respondent’s ethnic identity. While the community leaders identify themselves as Burmese/Myanmar-born Nepali/Gorkha, the respondents use the terms Nepali/Gorkha/Gorkhali interchangeably.

2 1 USD = 33.2 THB (In 2017, forex ranged from 32 to 35 THB/USD). Minimum wage in Bangkok in 2017 was THB 310 (Ministry of Labor 2016).

3 One respondent preferred to work in vegetarian homes; some respondents mentioned that they do not eat beef due to religious reasons, and hence prefer not to work in homes where beef is eaten.

4 Related to food, clothing, childcare, rituals and religion

5 Burmese and Tibetans of Nepali origin returning to Nepal find it difficult to be accepted into Nepalese society (Gellner 2018).