Abstract
Against the backdrop of unequal global development, millions of women from the global south leave their homes to work abroad as migrant domestic helpers, giving rise to transnational families where it is the mothers who work abroad. Research shows that in the absence of frequent homecoming visits, low-income migrant mothers utilize digital media to perform transnational mothering which is a practice of sustaining intimate attachment and fulfilling nurturing roles from a distance. Transnational mothering epitomizes the practice-based family relationships that are defined through “doing” family rather than through blood ties or shared residence. Recent theoretical development in the sociology of family further proposes that in addition to being done, family also needs to be displayed. By displaying family, individuals performatively enact family values, roles, and obligations in ways that more accurately reflect their subjective consciousness. For migrant families, these family practices are increasingly mediated by mobile media and communication.This ethnographic investigation examines the social consequences of smartphone technologies on distant caregiving practices among Indonesian mothers in Hong Kong and their families in Indonesia. It adopted a ritual approach to understanding how smartphone affordances shape the everyday interaction between migrant mothers and their families as ways of doing and displaying family. Research has often analyzed transnational mothering through the lens of the “good versus evil” duality of media technologies. Some claimed that mobile technologies have revolutionized transnational mothering by shrinking space and time, allowing migrant mothers to supervise their children’s daily activities, micromanage household affairs, and obtain social support during a crisis. Yet others have criticized transnational mothering as a form of gender oppression, surveillance, and exploitation. There is also a noticeable lack of diversity in the literature of mediated transnational mothering in that most studies have focused on either middle-class or Filipino mothers abroad, leaving the experiences of Indonesian low-income migrant mothers – with their unique sociocultural and religious characteristics – largely underexplored. Moreover, due to its relatively recent widespread availability, smartphone technology has not been systematically examined in relation to transnational mothering, leaving a gap in our understanding of how the technological convergence within smartphones shapes distant caregiving, maternal identity, and female labor migration.
This study addresses these gaps by analyzing the sociotechnical consequences of smartphones on transnational mothering practices among Indonesian mothers in Hong Kong. In analyzing mediated rituals, this study is guided by several related theories and concepts including displaying family, affordances theory, and polymedia. Doing so, the analysis circumvents the “good versus evil” narratives and gives primacy to neither the technological potentials of smartphones nor the mothers’ needs and intentions but to the constant negotiation between the two. To achieve its objectives, this longitudinal study adopted multiple data collection methods including participant observation, photo-elicitation, application walkthrough, qualitative content analysis of social media activities, as well as narrative interviews with 45 Indonesian migrant mothers and migrant activists.
The analysis revealed that smartphones have profoundly altered transnational family practices among Indonesian mothers in Hong Kong. Compared to landlines and pre-paid mobile phones, smartphone mothering is flexible, multiple, and intentional. In a process that I call mediated family display, migrant mothers use smartphones to establish and maintain family communicative rituals through which they obtain a sense of continuity and stability throughout the flows of their relationships. These mediated rituals also provide the contexts in which migrant mothers strategically negotiate multiple identities and roles, including mothers, breadwinners, professionals, and even migrant activists. The findings highlight the micro workings of polymedia by demonstrating how smartphone affordances reinforce family rituals through a variety of display tools such as texting, video calling, and mobile photography, depending on the mothers’ personal, emotional, and moral considerations. Finally, the analysis illuminates the precarity of mediated family relationships; Far from being a guaranteed success, mediated family relationships can fail due to misrecognition of display, differences in digital literacy, and lack of focus. If a successful family display invigorates a distant relationship, a failed display further exacerbates the emotional chasm between migrant mothers and their families.
This study advances the literature of mediated communication by presenting evidence for the mutual shaping of technological features and users’ agency within a larger sociocultural context. Smartphone mothering, as a media-oriented phenomenon, is a result of a unique imbrication between material features of smartphones and migrant mothers’ desire for validation and intimacy. The imbrication takes place in the wider contexts of Islamic family values, prevailing gender roles, feminized migration, and an imbalance in employer-helper power relations. This study proposes the concept of mediated family display as a conceptual tool that aids in the theorizing of digital media in distant family relationships by emphasizing agency, intersubjectivity, and precarity. Finally, this dissertation concludes with firsthand lessons on ethical considerations in ethnography among marginalized communities.
| Date of Award | 6 May 2022 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Marko SKORIC (Supervisor) |