Filipina Caregivers and Domestic Workers in Southern Taiwan: Communities and Human Rights

Abstract

This thesis is an ethnographic explorative case study of Filipina caregivers and domestic workers in Taiwan, based on seven months of field research. It combines participant observation, interviews with Filipina household workers and migrant worker NGO representatives and church workers, and a review of written materials from these NGOs. Using Arjun Appadurai's (1996) theoretical framework on landscapes and the production of locality, it explores how Filipina household workers create locality in the production of transnational ethnoscapes, as well as how they demand the recognition of their rights within the transnational ideoscapes of human rights. I found that Filipinas create locality through the creation and use of Filipino spaces, including the Catholic Church, Filipino restaurants and shops, and public spaces likes parks. With respect to human rights, I found that Filipina household workers demand the recognition of their human rights through the assistance of the Church and migrant workers NGOs, but with limited success.