Family, migration and the gender politics of care

By embodying notions of home, family, gender, masculinity, femininity and sexuality, Southeast Asian families are central sites for the cultural expression and reworking of ideas of the ‘modern’ as well as for the expression of anxieties around the costs (and benefits) of reproduction and development (Brickell and Yeoh 2014). Intra-familial relations represent a continuous, fluid process of negotiations, contracts and exchange – whether altruistic, reciprocal, unequal or oppressive – within the context of broader political, economic and social change. Relations of equality and complementarity between Southeast Asian men and women have long been thought to be a regional characteristic (Andaya 2007), but much has changed with the advent of neoliberal globalization in recent times. Within the family/household, ¹ Southeast Asian women play a critical role in ensuring the physical and social reproduction across generations, even though the normalization of the gendered division of labor and feminized care work often leave women’s sacrifices and resilience unrecognized and unrewarded. Inasmuch as women are expected to be the lynchpins of the household responsible for shoring up the reproductive sphere, they are sometimes also blamed for household negligence in cases of marital dissolution or breakdown, as vividly demonstrated by Cambodian women’s struggles for legitimacy in the face of stigma and shame resulting from the physical division of the marital house into two after a divorce (or other forms of marital disruption) (Brickell 2014).