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 THE PROJECT 

LESBIAN RELATIONSHIPS AMONG INDONESIAN MIGRANT WORKERS IN HONG KONG 

There are more than 150,000 Indonesian women migrated to Hong Kong as domestic helpers. In this research, we attempted to understand this group of minority in terms of gender and sexuality. Many scholars have been working on this aspect in their research, contributing our understanding towards the subjectivity of the Indonesian domestic workers. Most of them believed Hong Kong as an important factor not only for their ‘coming out’, but also a transition of their sexual orientation. Therefore, they attempted to explain this phenomenon by looking the issue from macro to micro aspects, ranging from the economic transformation, ideologies, to experience in training center and betrayal of the husband.  While recognizing their contribution towards our understanding on Indonesian domestic helpers who engaged/engaging in lesbian relationship, more details on their lesbian practice in Hong Kong could be explored. It is because as an international city, Hong Kong has a relatively higher degree level of freedom to express one’s sexuality compared to Indonesia. However, as migrant workers, they hardly enjoy private time with their lovers due to their occupation nature and salary.

 

In addition, they are hardly merged with the mainstream lesbian communities in Hong Kong due to their language, culture, and ethnicity. In such, they are further marginalized. In order to give voice to them, the research aimed to explore their lesbian practice in Hong Kong, both in reality and on internet by answering the following research questions: How is their experiences of homosexual and relationship in Indonesia and Hong Kong? What that means to their identity as well as how they ‘live out’ & negotiate these ‘new’ sexual/gender identities given the multiple unique constraints they face which aren’t necessarily faced by other lesbian communities in Hong Kong. Constraints such as limited time, space, ‘live-in policy’, money and conservative religious ideologies that these domestic workers face plays a bigger role. And how do migrant lesbians make use of online social media?

 

  We conducted our field work in Victoria park, Causeway Bay. Access to these communities is through personal connections. In addition to interviews, we also spent 2 different Sundays with them and got to participate and observe how they live out these rather fascinating lesbian identities. On each Sunday we spent on average about 7 hours.

THE PROJECT
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