In Service and Servitude: Acknowledgments

Christine B.N. Chin

1998

Acknowledgments

This study would not have been possible without the cooperation of the many Malaysian employers, and Filipina and Indonesian domestic workers who overcame their reservations to speak to me about the various aspects of domestic service. Many of the employers did not see how the subject of foreign servants could be of intellectual interest, and some even wondered out loud that perhaps I was unable to find something better to do in life. Despite our difference in outlook, some of us will enjoy but none of us can fully escape the interlocking effects of the movement of transnational capital across the globe. As employers live the daily exigencies of pursing careers, having families, and building other social networks, I hope they will pause to contemplate the contradictory ways in which the processes of global, regional, and national economic restructuring shape their consciousness and lives.

Some of the most challenging and enjoyable periods of field research were my interactions with Indonesian and Filipina domestic workers. Their hopes, dreams, pain, and fear left me feeling empowered and helpless at the same time. Several of the more outspoken women asked if I intended to publish my study because they wanted the world to know about some of the conditions under which they worked and lived. In many ways, they made me grapple with the question of the relationship between theoria and praxis. Capturing their voices in print in a scholarly prose is one step, albeit small, toward revisiting the barriers between objectivity-subjectivity and aloofness-commitment.

Here in the United States, I acknowledge a number of individuals who had had a direct and indirect hand in shaping the form and content of this study. Diane Singerman’s patience and faith in me gave me the courage to push the limits of my intellect. The framework of modernity via consumption would have had a more difficult path to articulation had it not been for her never-ending questions that, nearly, were impossible to answer. Nevertheless, the puzzle was put together bit by bit as I struggled to answer them.

Cynthia Enloe, who long has paved the way for those of us interested in researching women and international/global politics and political economy, was tremendously instrumental in polishing the finished puzzle. She was as encouraging as she was critical in her incisive comments on the “forest and the trees,” so to speak. Her ability to critique without tearing down the author’s sense of self-worth indeed is a rarity that should be validated over and over again. Thank you Cynthia for your warmth, your brilliance, and your humanity.

To James H. Mittelman, please know that the past few years have been invaluable to the development of my intellectual voice. Jim spent a considerable amount of time and effort engaging me in dialogue on the theoretical aspects of this and other scholarly efforts. He was ever so kind and forthcoming in his advice—and, to be sure criticisms—of different chapters. I am deeply appreciative of his consistent support and his ability always to bring out the best scholarly work in me.

It is said that with “age comes wisdom.” In this sense, I pay homage to Hamid Mowlana, who tried to instill in me the values and strength to be a productive and independent researcher. My thanks also to a good friend and colleague, Mustapha Kamal Pasha. He is a kindred spirit who understands and can articulate the kinds of theoretical and ethico-moral struggles experienced by those of us from postcolonial societies who live and work in the West today. His brilliant mind and generosity are what give me the strength to face my fear of falling into the pit of mediocrity.

I owe the first half of the book’s title to Renée Marlin-Bennett who, during a telephone conversation one day, would not let me hang up until we had produced an acceptable title. Given her present research on intellectual property rights, it behooves me to tell her that she may not collect any royalties on this one.

Other scholars, near and far, commented on a version of chapter 4 in particular, and in general, the theoretical framework of the entire book at the York-MUNS (Multilateralism and the United Nations System) Symposium, York University, Toronto, Canada, May 4–6, 1994. With much respect, I acknowledge Robert W. Cox, Stephen Gill, Craig Murphy, Kees Van der Pijl, Fantu Cheru, Mustapha Kamal Pasha, Rianne Mahon, Hélène Pellerin, Ezz-Edine Chouckri, Brian Ford, John-Paul Halucha, Martin Hewson, Nilgün Önder, Magnus Ryner, and Timothy Sinclair.

Formal and informal conversations with other critically oriented intellectuals would influence the form and content of every chapter in this book. I humbly acknowledge the help of J. Ann Tickner, Simona Sharoni, Marsha J. Darling, and Sylvia C. Tiwon, whose dedication to critical feminist pedagogy and scholarship continues to give me consistent intellectual and emotional sustenance.

The completion of my manuscript was made possible with the institutional support of the School of International Service (SIS) at American University. The Dean of SIS, Louis W. Goodman, and the staff, especially Rana el-Khatib and Steven Carlson, ensured that the postdoctoral fellow had just about everything she needed to do so. From the theoretical to the lascivious, William P. Brady, Fanta Aw, Gary R. Weaver, and Beth I. Wachs, in their own ways, helped me keep a healthy sense of humor as I walked and at times hobbled along the path of the scholar-educator.

Various individuals in Malaysia and the United States were indispensable to different stages of producing the manuscript. Mrs. Khoo Siew Mun graciously gave me access to the resources of and her staff at the Clearing House on Women in Development, Women’s Affairs Division of the Ministry of National Unity and Social Development, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She made it possible for me to work with the library staff at Universiti Malaya. Special thanks to Sharifuddin Mohamad Sharif, executive at the New Straits Times Press Resource Center, who spent two and one-half weeks with me shifting through piles of old newspapers and microfiche in a refrigerated room.

Fieldwork would have been much more difficult had it not been for the following activists who warmly welcomed me back to Kuala Lumpur: Caridad Tharan, International Council on Management of Population Programmes; Nedra Weerakoon, Asian and Pacific Development Centre’s Gender Project; Irene and Agile Fernandez, Tenaganita; and Ivy Josiah, Women’s Aid Organization. At Universiti Malaya, Loh Lee Lee and Shanmugam Paramasivam graciously shared with me respective information on domestic workers and Indonesian migrant labor. Patrick Pillai, senior fellow at the Institute for Security and International Studies, Kuala Lumpur, also devoted a considerable amount of time discussing with me the various dimensions of international migration theory, and the political economy of development in Malaysia.

I do not know how to express fully right here my indebtedness to and love for several life-long friends. They are Yolanda, Meng Fui, Esther, and Ellen Chan, who (despite their not-so-secretly held hopes that I would do better in the corporate as opposed to the academic world) stood by me and helped fight some of my battles and doubts in the course of producing the manuscript. As I write these words, I think that Meng Fui finally understands my drive to be a scholar-educator. I hope to be able to reciprocate at some point, even though I still believe that he would make a better professor than a wealthy businessman from an Asian NIC.

Nzinga Robinson opened her Washington D.C. home to me, my pets, and my books as a safe (read: distraction-less) haven from which to write the initial incarnations of the manuscript. She and her daughter, Ngozi Temitope Robinson, welcomed me in their lives fully aware that the processes of writing could and frequently did turn me into a monster. Words fail to capture adequately the hilarious and heartbreaking moments as a privileged Malaysian Chinese woman negotiated her voice, space, and identity in the home of a middle-class African-American family in Washington D.C. Nzinga courageously and patiently put up with constant comments such as “I have no life” and “I think I’ve lost my mind” until my utterances drove members of the household near-crazy. At times, her responses were met with much incredulity that could only fuel the spirit to conquer a fear-based disease called procrastination: “Do you know that the ‘Mo-tea-sir’ tribe is long dead? Please sweep the staircase . . . you may as well act like a maid if you’re going to write about one.” As an adult and as a guest in the house, I consciously surrendered my civil-political rights, even though I was not always able to acknowledge then that I would gain, in return, an even deeper understanding of the limitations and privileges of my identity. It should be said that my temporary surrender of civil-political rights during that period in no way affirmed the viability of the authoritarian path to democracy.

As an author, I could not have asked for a better working relationship with the editorial staff at Columbia University Press. Kate Wittenberg, editor-in-chief, took the manuscript and “ran with it.” She was both encouraging and understanding, but also firm in the ways that she dealt with the logistics of taking the manuscript to press. Thanks also to Alex Coolman and Leslie Bialler. Leslie, who provided uninhibited and hilarious comments on the manuscript, kept me engaged in the project during the most isolationist period of reviewing the final changes. I, alone, am responsible for any and all errors.

Above all else, the Chin family and especially my father K.V. Chin, gallantly fielded criticisms of how I had given up avenues to increase my material wealth (or is it many times the ability to meet basic human needs?) only to settle for a study of “maids.” Yet, individually and collectively my father and my siblings Sandra, B.Y., Beek See, and Beek Yin, help me remain committed to my vocation in a way that balances the intellectual with the spiritual and the material. My father worked hard to ensure that regardless of my career path, I would neither lose sight of the value of my choices nor my person in relation to my spiritual upbringing and teachers. This book tells him that I may be a bit closer to finding that particular kind of peace in my heart.

Christine B. N. Chin

September 1997

“Scenes of Malaysian Life” Series.
Originally published in New Straits Times, March 12, 1988. Used by permission of the cartoonist, Lat.