Beyond the ‘all seeing eye’: Filipino migrant domestic workers’ contestation of care and control in Hong Kong

This paper draws on ethnographic data about Filipino migrant domestic workers’ perceptions of and responses to the use of surveillance cameras in the home to intervene in recent debates about surveillance, care and social control. On the one hand, our participants disclose what following Gary Marx (1981) we refer to as the gendered ironies of care and control. Digital surveillance practices in the home not only produce tactics for evading control but also reduce the capacity of migrant workers to deliver the best possible care that is ostensibly the basis for the deployment of new forms of watching. On the other hand, the responses we document here speak to critiques of the Foucauldian vision of surveillance derived from the panopticon that are ‘abstract, disembodied and distrustful’. In contrast to the Benthamite reading of God’s all seeing eye, Filipino migrant workers invoke a relational vision which speaks to connectedness, trust and the possibility of mutual concern. While the use of covert surveillance cameras especially was perceived as undermining the trust necessary for care relationships, some respondents used the devices to provoke face to face encounters deemed necessary to re-establish relations of trust

One world is not enough: the structured phenomenology of lifestyle migrants in East Asia

The paper is based on original empirical research into the lifestyle migration of European migrants, primarily British, to Thailand and Malaysia, and of Hong Kong Chinese migrants to Mainland China. We combine strong structuration theory (SST) with Heideggerian phenomenology to develop a distinctive approach to the interplay between social structures and the lived experience of migrants. The approach enables a rich engagement with the subjectivities of migrants, an engagement that is powerfully enhanced by close attention to how these inner lives are deeply interwoven with relevant structural contexts. The approach is presented as one that could be fruitfully adopted to explore parallel issues within all types of migration. As is intrinsic to lifestyle migration, commitment to a better quality of life is central to the East Asian migrants, but they seek an uncomplicated, physically enhanced texture of life, framed more by a phenomenology of prosaic well‐being than of self‐realization or transcendence. In spite of possessing economic and status privileges due to their relatively elite position within global structures the reality for a good number of the lifestyle migrants falls short of their prior expectations. They are subject to particular kinds of socio‐structural marginaliszation as a consequence of the character of their migration, and they find themselves relatively isolated and facing a distinct range of challenges. A comparison with research into various groups of migrants to the USA brings into relief the specificities of the socio‐structural positioning of the lifestyle migrants of the study. Those East Asian migrants who express the greatest sense of ease and contentment seem to be those who have responded creatively to the specific challenges of their socio‐structural situation. Often, this appears to have been achieved through understated but active involvements with their new settings and through sustaining focused transnational connections and relationships

One world is not enough: the structured phenomenology of lifestyle migrants in East Asia: One world is not enough

The paper is based on original empirical research into the lifestyle migration of European migrants, primarily British, to Thailand and Malaysia, and of Hong Kong Chinese migrants to Mainland China. We combine strong structuration theory (SST) with Heideggerian phenomenology to develop a distinctive approach to the interplay between social structures and the lived experience of migrants. The approach enables a rich engagement with the subjectivities of migrants, an engagement that is powerfully enhanced by close attention to how these inner lives are deeply interwoven with relevant structural contexts. The approach is presented as one that could be fruitfully adopted to explore parallel issues within all types of migration. As is intrinsic to lifestyle migration, commitment to a better quality of life is central to the East Asian migrants, but they seek an uncomplicated, physically enhanced texture of life, framed more by a phenomenology of prosaic well-being than of self-realization or transcendence. In spite of possessing economic and status privileges due to their relatively elite position within global structures the reality for a good number of the lifestyle migrants falls short of their prior expectations. They are subject to particular kinds of socio-structural marginalisation as a consequence of the character of their migration, and they find themselves relatively isolated and facing a distinct range of challenges. A comparison with research into various groups of migrants to the USA brings into relief the specificities of the socio-structural positioning of the lifestyle migrants of the study. Those East Asian migrants who express the greatest sense of ease and contentment seem to be those who have responded creatively to the specific challenges of their socio-structural situation. Often, this appears to have been achieved through understated but active involvements with their new settings and through sustaining focused transnational connections and relationships

Admonestation policière et justice des mineurs: au mieux des intérêts de qui?

Die vorliegende Artikel stiitzt sich auf eine dreijahrige Untersuchung über polizeiliche Ermahnung und das Jugendkriminalrechtssystem in England/Wales. Überpruft wird die Entwicklung von Ermahnungs-Modellen und der Kooperation zwischen verschiedenen Institutionen in einem politischen und theoretischen Kontext der Reform des Jugendstrafrechts. Insbesondere erstreckt sich die Fragestellung auf die Verbindungen zwischen Ermahnung und a) anderen polizeilichen Prioritäten, b) den Verànderungen in der Bedeutung des Wohlfahrtsstaates und c) vor allem in den 90er Jahren der Einführung kommerzieller Ansätze in die Strafjustiz. In dem Beitrag werden die Machtverhältnisse zwischen Polizei und anderen Institutionen sowie die Beschränkung der Kooperation im Hinblick auf die Grenzen des lokalen Systems von Jugendstrafrecht thematisiert. SchlieBlich wird die Frage gestellt, inwieweit Strafkompetenzen vom Gericht auf exekutive Einrichtungen übertragen worden sind.Based on a three-year empirical study of policing cautioning and juvenile justice in England and Wales, the paper examines the development of police cautioning schemes and inter-agency consultation within a political and theoretical context of juvenile justice reform. In particular, it asks : in what ways is the deve- lopment of police cautioning tied up with other policing priorities, the changing notions of «welfarism» and, particularly in the 1990s, the administrative concerns of the «business» approach in criminal justice ? The paper explores the differential power relations between the police and other non-police agencies and, ultimately, the limits of multi-agency work in policing the boundaries of the local juvenile justice system. It also raises questions about the extent to which the locus of the «power to punish» has moved from the court to pre-court decision- making.Cet article s'appuie sur une enquête triennale sur l'admonestation policière et la justice des mineurs en Angleterre et Galles. Il examine le développement des modèles d'admonestation et de coopération entre institutions dans un contexte politique et théorique de réforme de la justice des mineurs. En particulier, il s'interroge sur les liens entre admonestation et a) les autres priorités policières, b) les changements de la notion d'Etat-providence et, c) surtout dans les années 1990, l'introduction d'une préoccupation «entrepreneuriale» de la justice pénale. L'article étudie les relations de pouvoir entre police et autres institutions, les limites de la coopération entre services en ce qui concerne les domaines-frontières du système local de justice des mineurs. Il s'interroge enfin sur la mesure dans laquelle le pouvoir de punir a migré du tribunal vers les lieux de décision anté-judiciaire.Het artikel handelt over de politiële waarschuwing en de jeugdbescherming in Engeland en Wales, zich baserend op een empirische studie van drie jaar. Men onderzoekt de ontwikkeUng van modellen van waarschuwing en de samenwer- king tussen de verschillende instellingen binneen een politieke en theoretische context van hervorming van het jeugdbeschermingsrecht. Meer bepaald stelt men vragen naar de banden tussen de waarschuwing en a) de andere politieprio- riteiten, b) de veranderingen in de notie «welvaartsstaat» en c) vooral dan in de jaren '90, de invoer van de bekommernis van de administratie voor een «profes- sionele» benadering binnen het strafrecht. Het artikel bespreekt de machtsrelaties tussen politie en andere instellingen en de beperkingen voor de samenwerking tussen de diensten voor wat betreft de grensgebieden van het lokale jeugdbeschermingssysteem. Tenslotte stelt men de vraag in welke mate de macht om te straffen verschoven is van de rechtbank naar het gebied van de voor-gerechtelijke besluitvorming.Lee Maggy. Admonestation policière et justice des mineurs: au mieux des intérêts de qui?. In: Déviance et société. 1994 - Vol. 18 - N°1. pp. 43-54

Race, gender, and surveillance of migrant domestic workers in Asia

© Maggy Lee, Mark Johnson, and Mike McCahill, 2017. This chapter provides a transnational analysis of the ways in which migrant workers are placed at the sharp end of migration control based on gendered and racialized notions of domestic labour. Migrant women from the Philippines to Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia are routinely subjected to an extensive and diffuse process of surveillance and social sorting beyond the geographic border and criminal justice system. In their country of origin, women’s mobilities are conditioned by their willingness to produce a documented identity as good women and disciplined workers. In their countries of destination, they are subjected to a range of state and non-state monitoring processes that seek to racially assign and keep different sorts of migrant women in their place as foreign residents and disposable workers. Ultimately, differential inclusion remains underpinned by a criminal justice system that can bear down heavily on migrants through the threat of criminalization, detention, and deportation

Care and control of juvenile deliquents in Hong Kong

published_or_final_versionSociologyMasterMaster of Philosoph

Doing criminology on media and crime in Asia

© The Author(s) 2017. This article draws from recent critiques on media criminology in the North. In doing so, we are interested in whether and how these critiques figure in relation to those doing criminology in the South, in particular in Asia. We first describe why media criminology has yet to develop as an area of study in its own right and what lessons we might draw from the development of media criminology in the Northern context. We then examine the contours of crime and media research in the East and Southeast Asian context, looking particularly at how existing studies on media and deviance reinforce or challenge traditional notions about problems and problem populations, and how media and deviance are intertwined in a variety of culturally inflected ways that reflect broader political institutions and political contestations. Third, we begin to sketch out the contributions from other disciplines to inform the study of crime and media in Asia. Here we suggest that some disciplines, particularly the rich tradition of sociology of media studies and cultural studies, may be better placed to analyze media and crime in ways that administrative criminology in the Asian context cannot. Significantly, as our preliminary mapping of media representations of specific crime issues in Asia indicates, studies on reporting crime and fictionalizing crime in Asia have produced critical insights into the construction of the crime landscape (its fears and concerns, its potential victims, and the role of the citizen and government) in the region.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Beyond Myself

Beyond Myself is a traveling exhibition that arises from the AHRC funded research project Curating Development. Curating community-based art events and three exhibitions in London, Manila and Hong Kong drawing on object and photo elicitation, commissioned art work and food sharing enabled multiple voices and multiple ideas and interpretations – of migrant care workers, policy makers, artists, academics, as well as objects themselves, to be heard and enter a prolific and innovative form of dialogue about migrant welfare and investment both in the places where they live and work (like HK and London) and in the places where a significant portion of their earnings and resources are invested (the Philippines). We conceive of curation as a particular form of research practice involving a continual process of negotiation among people, spaces, objects and images. We see exhibition making as a device which changes in the process of making. Curation is neither simply about capturing or representing the world, nor assembling a collection of objects and texts. Rather it is a creative process that through affective practices of care and conviviality brings forth ideas and inspires conversation, in this case about migration and development. This virtual exhibition - available in both Filipino and English language versions - draws together and is a further iteration of those conversations, as well as a showcase of, and launch pad for, a variety of creative afterlives. In that way, the project is not just about curating development but also about developing and democratising curation