Eating together: navigating commensality in expatriate households employing migrant domestic workers in Singapore
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Date
2009
Authors
von der Borch, Rosslyn Marie
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Publisher
Australian National University
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Abstract
In this paper the author explores the issue of how meals are eaten in expatriate households in Singapore, where live-in migrant domestic workers are employed. This is an issue that is both practical and richly symbolic. It is argued that commensality (or its absence) is a key point through which many of the features of the migrant domestic worker-employer relationship can be read: privilege and exclusion, shame, ambivalence, othering, gender and power.
Description
Keywords
International relations, Social practices, Meal sharing
Citation
von der Borch, R., 2009. Eating together: navigating commensality in expatriate households employing migrant domestic workers in Singapore. Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 19, 1-14.