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dc.contributor.authorElias, Juanita
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-03T15:48:56Z
dc.date.available2017-05-03T15:48:56Z
dc.date.issued2008
dc.date.modified2012-02-10T02:05:07Z
dc.identifier.issn03085147
dc.identifier.doi10.1080/03085140801933330
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/33065
dc.description.abstractThis article considers the possibilities and limitations that the employment of human rights discourse poses for organizations in Malaysia involved in migrant domestic worker issues. Because domestic employment is such an overwhelmingly feminized occupation, one logical avenue of enquiry is to analyse these organizations' adoption of 'rights talk' from a critical feminist perspective. The case-study research presented in this article suggests that activist groups are keen to adopt the language of human rights and make reference to international human rights standards in their work. The questions that frame this paper, therefore, are: to what extent does the engagement with the language of human rights by the activist groups challenge mainstream discourses of human rights that tend to exclude marginalized groups of women? And, when we make migrant domestic workers the subject of human rights claims, what then are the implications for human rights practice? It is suggested that the activities of activist organizations can play a role in destabilizing universalistic notions of human rights. Specifically, I highlight the ways in which campaigns to protect the rights of migrant domestic workers contain implicit critiques of both the public/private divide upon which mainstream human rights standards have been developed and the problematic relationship between rights and citizenship.
dc.description.peerreviewedYes
dc.description.publicationstatusYes
dc.format.extent134697 bytes
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherRoutledge
dc.publisher.placeUnited Kingdom
dc.relation.ispartofstudentpublicationN
dc.relation.ispartofpagefrom282
dc.relation.ispartofpageto303
dc.relation.ispartofissue2
dc.relation.ispartofjournalEconomy and Society
dc.relation.ispartofvolume37
dc.rights.retentionY
dc.subject.fieldofresearchGovernment and Politics of Asia and the Pacific
dc.subject.fieldofresearchApplied Economics
dc.subject.fieldofresearchPolitical Science
dc.subject.fieldofresearchSociology
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode160606
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode1402
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode1606
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode1608
dc.titleStruggles over the Rights of Foreign Domestic Workers in Malaysia: The possibilities and limitations of “rights talk"
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.descriptionC1 - Articles
dc.type.codeC - Journal Articles
gro.rights.copyright© 2008 Routledge. This is an electronic version of an article published in Economy and Society, Vol. 37(2), 2008, pp. 282-303. Economy and Society is available online at: http://www.informaworld.com with the open URL of your article.
gro.date.issued2008
gro.hasfulltextFull Text
gro.griffith.authorElias, Juanita M.


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