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Reading and writing between different worlds: Learning, literacy and power in the lives of two migrant domestic workers Amy North * Humanities and Social Science, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, United Kingdom ‘‘Now, when I go back to Nepal I want to sit and watch and relax. I want to have some lessons and I can help my nephews and nieces with their learning. . . My husband is so happy that I am going back. He says that he is counting the days. In my village everyone is waiting for me. . . to have celebrations at the temple I paid for.’’ Priya 23/12/08 ‘‘My employer asked how I learnt so many languages if I can’t read and write. She said she has to write things down to remember. She uses her computer all the time. I told her ‘‘my brain is like a computer.’’ Sudha 25/08/09 Priya and Sudha 1 are two migrant domestic workers from Nepal whom, between June 2008 and January 2010, participated in an informal literacy learning support group, together with other migrant domestic workers from Nepal and India, at the Migrant Resource Centre (MRC) 2 in London. This paper draws on research, which stems from my involvement with the MRC, a centre which is open to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to receive advice, learn English or computer skills, meet with others, and come together to share ideas and concerns about issues that affect them. Between 2007 and 2010 I collaborated with the MRC under the mentor scheme, which pairs up migrants wanting to improve their English with volunteers willing to support them, starting work with the group of women of which Priya and Sudha formed a part in 2008. While the women in the group did want to improve their spoken English, their main concern was with learning to read and write (in English). The ‘‘mentoring’’ sessions therefore quickly transformed themselves into an informal literacy support group. In this paper I consider the experiences of Priya and Sudha, two of the original members of group. I draw on empirical data collected through participant-observation of the weekly literacy support sessions and records of informal discussions and inter- views to tell their stories. Drawing on theoretical insights from the New Literacy Studies and an ideological model of literacy (Street, 1984) as a gendered social practice; recent work on literacy and transnationalism; and Lois McNay’s consideration gendered power relations, agency and constraint, I explore the way in which their engagement with literacy interacts with the gendered power relations they experience as they move between different spaces. In doing so I suggest that a consideration of the transnational dimensions of their lives and the opportunities and constraints that they experience as migrant domestic workers is critical for understanding their engagement with literacy, and for thinking about possibilities for moving towards greater gender justice in the lives of migrant domestic workers like them. 1. Literacy, gender and power in local and global spaces Over the last two decades an extensive body of literature has explored literacy in developing countries from the perspective of literacy as a social practice, drawing on an ideological model of International Journal of Educational Development 33 (2013) 595–603 A R T I C L E I N F O Keywords: Literacy Gender Domestic labour Migration Gender justice Empowerment A B S T R A C T Over the last decades, studies exploring women’s literacy have highlighted the way in which literacy practices are embedded within social norms and structures of power. This article draws on research with a group of female migrant domestic workers from Nepal who attended literacy support sessions at the Migrant Resource Centre in London. It explores the way in which their engagement with literacy and learning interacts with the gendered relations of power they experience as they move between different transnational spaces and social fields. It suggests that a consideration of the opportunities and constraints that they experience as migrant domestic workers is critical for understanding their engagement with literacy, and for thinking about possibilities for greater gender justice in the lives of migrant domestic workers like them. ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 020 7911 5405. E-mail address: [email protected]. 1 Both Priya and Sudha are pseudonyms. 2 For more information about the work of the MRC, see http://www.migrantsre- sourcecentre.org.uk/. Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect International Journal of Educational Development jo ur n al ho m ep ag e: ww w.els evier .c om /lo cat e/ijed u d ev 0738-0593/$ see front matter ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2012.12.001

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Page 1: Reading and writing between different worlds: Learning, literacy and power in the lives of two migrant domestic workers

International Journal of Educational Development 33 (2013) 595–603

Reading and writing between different worlds: Learning, literacy and power in thelives of two migrant domestic workers

Amy North *

Humanities and Social Science, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, United Kingdom

A R T I C L E I N F O

Keywords:

Literacy

Gender

Domestic labour

Migration

Gender justice

Empowerment

A B S T R A C T

Over the last decades, studies exploring women’s literacy have highlighted the way in which literacy

practices are embedded within social norms and structures of power. This article draws on research with

a group of female migrant domestic workers from Nepal who attended literacy support sessions at the

Migrant Resource Centre in London. It explores the way in which their engagement with literacy and

learning interacts with the gendered relations of power they experience as they move between different

transnational spaces and social fields. It suggests that a consideration of the opportunities and

constraints that they experience as migrant domestic workers is critical for understanding their

engagement with literacy, and for thinking about possibilities for greater gender justice in the lives of

migrant domestic workers like them.

� 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

International Journal of Educational Development

jo ur n al ho m ep ag e: ww w.els evier . c om / lo cat e/ i jed u d ev

‘‘Now, when I go back to Nepal I want to sit and watch and relax. I

want to have some lessons and I can help my nephews and nieces

with their learning. . . My husband is so happy that I am going back.

He says that he is counting the days. In my village everyone is

waiting for me. . . to have celebrations at the temple I paid for.’’Priya 23/12/08

‘‘My employer asked how I learnt so many languages if I can’t read

and write. She said she has to write things down to remember. She

uses her computer all the time. I told her ‘‘my brain is like a

computer.’’Sudha 25/08/09

Priya and Sudha1 are two migrant domestic workers from Nepalwhom, between June 2008 and January 2010, participated in aninformal literacy learning support group, together with othermigrant domestic workers from Nepal and India, at the MigrantResource Centre (MRC)2 in London. This paper draws on research,which stems from my involvement with the MRC, a centre which isopen to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers to receive advice,learn English or computer skills, meet with others, and cometogether to share ideas and concerns about issues that affect them.Between 2007 and 2010 I collaborated with the MRC under the

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 020 7911 5405.

E-mail address: [email protected] Both Priya and Sudha are pseudonyms.2 For more information about the work of the MRC, see http://www.migrantsre-

sourcecentre.org.uk/.

0738-0593/$ – see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2012.12.001

mentor scheme, which pairs up migrants wanting to improve theirEnglish with volunteers willing to support them, starting workwith the group of women of which Priya and Sudha formed a partin 2008. While the women in the group did want to improve theirspoken English, their main concern was with learning to read andwrite (in English). The ‘‘mentoring’’ sessions therefore quicklytransformed themselves into an informal literacy support group.

In this paper I consider the experiences of Priya and Sudha, twoof the original members of group. I draw on empirical datacollected through participant-observation of the weekly literacysupport sessions and records of informal discussions and inter-views to tell their stories. Drawing on theoretical insights from theNew Literacy Studies and an ideological model of literacy (Street,1984) as a gendered social practice; recent work on literacy andtransnationalism; and Lois McNay’s consideration gendered powerrelations, agency and constraint, I explore the way in which theirengagement with literacy interacts with the gendered powerrelations they experience as they move between different spaces.In doing so I suggest that a consideration of the transnationaldimensions of their lives and the opportunities and constraintsthat they experience as migrant domestic workers is critical forunderstanding their engagement with literacy, and for thinkingabout possibilities for moving towards greater gender justice in thelives of migrant domestic workers like them.

1. Literacy, gender and power in local and global spaces

Over the last two decades an extensive body of literature hasexplored literacy in developing countries from the perspective ofliteracy as a social practice, drawing on an ideological model of

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A. North / International Journal of Educational Development 33 (2013) 595–603596

literacy. Rejecting understandings of literacy as a neutral, technicalautonomous skill, ethnographic research has instead examined theway in which literacy practices are embedded within social andcultural norms and gendered structures of power (see for example,Kalman, 2001, 2005; Robinson-Pant, 2001, 2004; Street, 2004b).Such studies have often focused on women – as primary participantsin literacy programmes –, examining the multiple ways in whichthey understand and use literacy in particular settings. However, bysituating their analysis of literacy within an understanding of thelocal social context in which it occurs, scholars have also enabled anexamination of the way in which literacy practices interact withgendered power relations at the level of the family and community.They have highlighted, for example, how, in some communities,women’s participation in literacy classes may be constrained orresented by husbands or fathers (Maddox, 2007; Robinson-Pant,2000), or how such participation may be a way of resisting unequalrelations within the family (Kalman, 2001) or collectively challeng-ing male practices, such as the consumption of alcohol within thecommunity (George, 2004; Khandekar, 2009).

Ethnographic studies of literacy and gender in particular localcontexts have also problematised the relationship betweenliteracy and ‘‘empowerment’’, challenging commonly heldassumptions about the ‘‘illiterate (and therefore ‘‘ignorant’’/‘‘passive’’/‘‘oppressed’’) third world woman’’, and pointing to theways in which illiterate women are often highly knowledgeableand able to successfully employ a range of strategies when dealingwith literacy demanding situations (Betts, 2004; Chopra, 2004;Robinson-Pant, 2000, 2004; Street, 2004b). Moreover, they havecautioned against assuming that participation in literacy learningautomatically leads to empowerment, or that processes ofempowerment associated with literacy can be understoodnarrowly in terms of enhanced economic opportunities (Ahearn,2004; Bartlett, 2008; Robinson-Pant, 2000, 2001, 2004). Rather,they point to the need to understand how women may ‘‘take holdof’’ literacy in different ways and to consider what sort of literacyand processes of learning might be empowering to them inparticular local contexts (Robinson-Pant, 2004). In doing so, theysuggest the need for a multi-dimensional conceptualisation ofempowerment as a process (see for example, Kabeer, 1999), whichmight, for some women, be associated as much with changes interms of identity, self esteem, or social status and positioningrelative to others as with changes in the economic sphere.

Meanwhile, within the New Literacy Studies, there has been anincreasing concern with understanding not only the local but alsothe global dynamics of literacy and a number of recent articles havehighlighted tensions between a focus on locally situated literacypractices, and a consideration of how literacy may be shaped bydistant or global processes (e.g. Baynham, 2007; Blommaert, 2008;Brandt and Clinton, 2002; Maddox, 2008; Pahl and Rowswell, 2006;Reder & Davila, 2005; Street, 2004a; Warriner, 2007b). Empiricalstudies concerned with the global dynamics of literacy practiceshave considered the relationship between literacy and multi-modality (see for example, Pahl and Rowswell, 2006) and examinedhow texts become ‘‘recontextualised’’, taking on different meaningsand significance as they move between spaces (Blommaert, 2008;Kell, 2009). Elsewhere a growing body of research has focused on therelationship between transnationalism and literacy and theexperiences of transmigrants: individuals who, despite havingmoved physically across national borders, maintain links andconnections to their home countries and communities (see forexample, Baynham, 2007; Bruna, 2007; Hornberger, 2007; Lam andWarriner, 2012; Sarroub, 2009; Warriner, 2007a,b). This researchdraws attention to the way in which literacy practices may beinfluenced by or facilitate transnational movement, how emergentliteracy practices are affected by continued connections to homecommunities, and the role literacy may play in maintaining social

networks and connections with ‘‘home’’ (Lam and Warriner, 2012;Sarroub, 2009).

Lam and Warriner, in reviewing a range of research studiesconcerned with transnationalism and literacy suggest that theBourdieusian concept of social fields (see for example, Bourdieu,1991, 1992) might constitute a useful interpretative frame forconsidering literacy practices among transnational communities(Lam and Warriner, 2012). They use the term field to refer to a‘‘relational, multidimensional space of activity in which peopletake up positions in relation to one another according to how muchresources or capital they have’’ (Lam and Warriner, 2012, p. 192).Here forms of capital include not only economic capital but alsocultural capital – such as for example knowledge, skills,educational and professional credentials, cultural goods - andsocial capital, including access to social networks and affiliations.Lam and Warriner suggest that reading and writing can be seen as‘‘forms of capital production and exchange through which peopleare variously able to attain particular positions across diversesocial fields’’ (Lam and Warriner, 2012, p. 192). They give theexample of the way in which the bilingual skills of children ofimmigrant families, developed through interpreting dominantlanguage texts for their families, are highly valued within thefamily and immigrant community and, when combined with otherprofessional qualifications, a highly valuable asset within aglobalising economy, but are not recognised in American class-rooms. In this instance, the family, the school and workplace can allbe seen as different – intersecting – social fields through which anindividual moves and in which their literate cultural capital isvalued differently ‘‘depending on the rules of recognition andconversion in those fields’’ (Lam and Warriner, 2012, pp. 193–194).

This use of social fields as an interpretative frame, whileallowing for an understanding of the way in which literacy as asocial practice is situated in particular contexts, also permits aconsideration of movement between contexts – or fields – and ofhow what literacy means or does may change as individuals shiftbetween different local and transnational spaces in which they aredifferently positioned in relation to others. Significantly theconcept of social fields can also be used to highlight the centralityof understanding gendered power relations and how they may beconfigured in distinct ways in different spaces. As DeJaeghere,Parkes and Unterhalter discuss in the introduction to this issue,Lois McNay draws on Bourdieu’s notion of social fields in herdiscussion of gender, identity, power and agency (McNay, 2000,2008). For McNay, the concept of field, which ‘‘situates embodiedagents within a given set of relations that comprise distinctspheres of social action’’ (McNay, 2008, p. 182), is particularlyhelpful for an analysis of gender as ‘‘it provides a way ofconceptualising differentiated power relations which escape thedualisms of the public and the private’’ (McNay, 2008, p. 182).Meanwhile, she argues that the concept of habitus, which shedefines as ‘‘the process through which power relations areincorporated into the body in the form of durable physical andpsychological predispositions’’ (McNay, 2008, p. 12), facilitates ananalysis of the way in which structural power relations and genderhierarchies become inscribed on the body through everydaypractice. However, she suggests that habitus can be seen ‘‘not as adetermining principle, but as a generative structure’’ (McNay,2000, p. 25). It thus also enables the consideration of agency andthe possibility of change. Drawing on the notion of ‘‘freedom inconstraint’’ (2008, p. 193), she suggests a conceptualisation ofagency as ‘‘as embodied practice that is realised in different waysthrough particular configurations of power’’ (2008, p. 195) as‘‘cultural and economic forces play themselves out in daily life asconstraints and resources for action’’ (2008, p. 156).

My research considers the literacy, learning experiences andlives of women who, in contrast to the locally rooted women

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A. North / International Journal of Educational Development 33 (2013) 595–603 597

described in much ethnographic research, lead very global – ortransnational – lives. They are currently living and working inprivate households in the UK for international employers.Meanwhile, as I explore in the stories of Priya and Sudha, theymaintain close links to family and friends in their homecommunities, as well as in a range of other countries aroundthe globe. They also participate in social gatherings with othersfrom Nepal – particularly friends from their own Tamangcommunity – in the UK, and go to English classes run throughNGOs attended by other domestic workers. As migrant domesticworkers, they thus find themselves moving between differentspaces, both physically and through their communicativepractices. In each of these multiple spaces, in which thedistinction between ‘‘public’’ and ‘‘private’’ is often unclear –their work in the private households of others requires negotiat-ing the public realm of immigration whilst their ‘‘private’’relationships with their own family members are often conductedat a distance – gendered power relations are configured indifferent ways and they experience particular (freedoms and)constraints. These relate both to their experiences as migrantwomen from poor villages in Nepal now providing for families andcommunities and to the often difficult and exploitative nature oflive-in domestic work. In this paper, I draw on both the notion ofsocial fields as gendered spaces of power, and McNay’s con-ceptualisation of agency and constraint to consider the ways inwhich their movement between different spaces and thegendered power relations, freedoms and constraints theyexperience within them affect – and may be affected by – theirengagement with literacy and learning.

2. Working with the group

My empirical research, on which this paper draws in telling andanalysing the stories of Priya and Sudha was carried out between2007 and 2010, during which time I met with the group of women,including Priya and Sudha, on a weekly basis for literacy supportgroup sessions lasting between one and a half and two and a halfhours each. Between June 2007 and August 2008 I kept detailedobservation notes based on these sessions as well as copies of textsused or discussed in the sessions themselves. These werecomplemented with a detailed interview with Priya, carried outin December 2007 – as discussed below – and records of discussionsheld with members of this group over the entire three year period.Each session was attended by between one and six women, with atotal of ten women attending overall during the research period. As amentor/teacher as well as a researcher, I played an active role in thesessions, either through initiating learning activities or by respond-ing to particular literacy needs experienced by group membersoutside the session. This meant that I did not take on the silentparticipant-observer role often adopted by ethnographers, but wasactively involved in shaping the sessions themselves. As aconsequence, my data necessarily includes reflections on my ownpractices and the way these interact with the literacy practices of thewomen I am studying.

The sessions themselves represented a particular kind ofliteracy context – the women came together specifically forliteracy support, the sessions took place in a small classroom ormeeting room and in a centre offering a range of educational (andother support) services to members of migrant communities – andcan be understood in terms of comprising literacy events – timebound moments in which ‘‘the role literacy plays in the immediatesocial interactions between participants becomes available forstudy’’ (Moss, 2007, p. 40). However, the nature of the group andthe way in which the content of literacy learning that took placewithin sessions was negotiated between the different participants,meant that they also brought other contexts – or discussion of

other events – into the session space: interactions and discussionsbetween participants who come from the same networks and thesame villages, region or extended families in Nepal, often hingedaround what was happening within these communities or focusedon their working lives and relationships with their employers.Meanwhile, the informal nature of the sessions meant that,although I often came prepared with ideas for the group,accompanied by learning materials such as worksheets and books,members of the group would also bring in specific texts from‘‘outside’’ which they needed help reading or responding to. Thismeant that although I was unable to directly observe literacypractices in their daily lives outside these sessions – theirrelationships with employers were often difficult and it was notappropriate to expect them to negotiate for me to accessemployers’ households – by attempting to trace the connectionsbetween observed literacy events in the sessions and relatedevents described, discussed and remembered by the women itbecame possible to piece together a more complete picture of theplace and role of literacy in their lives as migrant women anddomestic workers. The group sessions thus provided an opportu-nity not only to examine the women’s engagement with literacywithin the specific context of the group itself, but also to try andunderstand how this linked to the wider, shifting, contexts of thewomen’s lives, which are framed by the different spaces within andbetween which they move.

All the women had come to the UK as domestic workers andall but one – who was from India – came from Nepal, a countrywith high levels of illiteracy, particularly among women:according to the UNESCO Global Monitoring Report, between2005 and 2008, only 45% of adult women over the age of fifteenwere considered literate (compared to 71% of men) (UNESCO,2011). Most – including Priya and Sudha – were Tamang womenfrom the hill and mountain regions in North and East Nepal.Ethnographic studies (Devries, 2012; March, 2002) suggest thatTamang women enjoy relatively high levels of mobility,autonomy and status within their communities, compared towomen from other ethnic groups in Nepal, but experience highlevels of marginalisation and discrimination – relating to theirgender and low caste status – within Nepalese society morewidely (Devries, 2012, p. 49).

In this paper I discuss data relating to the experiences ofSudha and Priya in particular. While coming from similarbackgrounds, all the women in the group have slightly differentexperiences and engagement with literacy and therefore theexperiences of Priya and Sudha cannot be seen to representthose of the group as a whole. Rather I draw on them as ‘‘tellingcases’’, considering that they are useful in illuminating thecomplex ways in which the relationship between literacy andgendered relations of power plays out in shifting transnationalspaces, and what this might mean for thinking about literacyand gender justice with relation to migrant domestic workerssuch as the women participating in my research. In thefollowing section I draw on my observation notes of oursessions, the interview conducted with Priya, and reflections,stories and anecdotes that both Priya and Sudha shared with meduring, before and after literacy support sessions. In doing so Ipresent narratives of their experiences in order to enablediscussion and analysis of key aspects of their engagement withliteracy and learning, migration and domestic work.

3. Two women’s stories

3.1. Priya

My life would have been easier if I learnt to read and write before.

My father is very proud that I have learnt to read and write here.

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3 For more information about the work of Kalayaan, see http://www.kalayaa-

n.org.uk/.

A. North / International Journal of Educational Development 33 (2013) 595–603598

That’s why I am forcing my nephews and nieces to go to school,

paying their school fees.Priya 23/12/08

Priya was one of the original members of the group who startedattending literacy support sessions in June 2008. In November 2008Priya had called me to explain that she would not be able to attendfor a few weeks as she was working extra time for a differentemployer: after a lengthy struggle to try and obtain a new work visashe felt that she was soon going to have to return to Nepal, and sowas trying to earn as much as possible before she went. A few weekslater Priya called me again. She explained that unless her visasuddenly came through she was planning to return to Nepal inJanuary, and without a visa would not be able to return to the UK.After eight years in London, during which she had not been able tosee her husband or family she explained she now could not wait anylonger: ‘‘it has been too long, I have been dreaming of my village, myfather and my mother, speaking to my husband every day. . .’’. Thefollowing week I was able to visit Priya at her employers’ house andshe agreed to be interviewed. Priya’s visa did eventually comethrough and she was able to come back to the UK after visiting herfamily in Nepal. However she has since had to return to Nepal afterher husband was seriously injured in an accident.

Priya, in her mid thirties at the time of the research, wasmarried but did not have children. Her husband was living in Indiawhere he worked as a driver. She had been working as a domesticworker since she was eight or nine. Unlike many or the members ofthe group who had no experience of formal education, Priya didattend school, but for a very short time. She explained:

My father was so poor. My mother and father can’t read, but my

father he wanted me to go to school, he told me go to school for your

future. He bought me pencils and paper so that I could go to school

and learn. But at that time we didn’t really know what reading and

writing meant. In my family we are nine brothers and sisters and I

was the only one who went to school. I was learning very well at

school. But one day I don’t know what I had done, I don’t remember

what it was, but my teacher slapped me very hard on my hand. My

parents had never slapped me and I was very angry and upset and I

walked out of the school and I went home. I said to my father I didn’t

want to stay in school, and he said ‘‘it’s up to you my daughter, I don’t

want to force you. But you are going to either have to stay here or go

and make your future yourself. I can’t give you any money’’.So I decided to go to the city (Kathmandu), that was when I was

eight or nine. And suddenly I was working, working. I sent a little

money back to my father.

Her first experiences of work in the Kathmandu were difficultones: she described being slapped and locked in the bathroom andurinating on herself as she was so frightened. She explained thatfive years later she returned to her village, before going to work inIndia, again as a domestic worker. She met her husband on a visitback to see her family, and married him, but explained that hisfamily was also poor so she had to go back to India to work. Shedescribed how she came to the UK in 2000, from India through arecruitment agency and initially found herself working for ‘‘verybad employers’’:

They had card parties all the time and sent me to other people’s

houses to clean and do the ironing. I was only paid £100 a month

and they hid my passport from me.

In 2005 she was able to change employers, finding work with aEuropean family, and managed to get her passport back, but,despite spending large amounts on lawyers’ fees, had not been ableto resolve the issue of her visa.

While living in the UK Priya was able to establish a wide socialnetwork with other Nepalese immigrants. She told me that

although she did not know anyone when she first arrived, by thetime of our interview she estimated that she knew 200 otherNepalese people living in London, of whom 60 or 100 came fromthe same region as her.

During her time in the UK Priya not only mastered good spokenEnglish but also learnt to read and write quite well. She was one ofthe most proficient readers/writers in the group and an importantsource of support for others, often helping others in the group reador explaining things in Nepalese or Tamang if they struggled withunderstanding. She explained that prior to joining our sessions, sheattended English classes through the organisation Kalayaan, whichprovides advice, advocacy and support services for migrantdomestic workers in the UK,3 for three years:

The teacher sat with me and really helped me to read and spell

words. I really appreciate the help from that teacher, I was very

proud when I took the exam. I got two certificates. The last exam I

failed as I couldn’t read the questions, it was too difficult.

However, in the context of the long hours and lack of privacythat working as a domestic worker in a private household entailsfinding time for learning was not easy. She explained: ‘‘Now I havetoo many things to do to learn and practise more.’’

When I interviewed her, Priya spoke passionately about thevalue she places on having learnt to read and write, telling me thatit had made ‘‘a complete difference to my life’’:

Before I would be crying when I couldn’t write and my teacher

asked me to write letters: A for Apple, B for Boy and I couldn’t. Now I

can do this, I know. . .

Now at least I can read and write a little. Now if someone asks me

my surname at least I know how to spell it, if they ask my house

number or road I can write it. Before I used to write when I woke up

in the morning to practise.When I got the letter from the home office I could read what it said,

there was just one word I didn’t know what they meant and I had to

go and ask my employer. . . Usually if I need help to read things or

fill a form I ask my friends.Now it is much easier to know how to go places, for an interview or

something. I know the postcodes NW3, NW1. . . Before I had to get a

taxi if I got lost and would be charged so much because I couldn’t

read the places, the street names to find my way. Once I got lost and

I had to get a taxi, and he took me here, and he charged me £5 even

though it was just around the corner but I hadn’t realised.

The importance she places on literacy means that shepersuaded her husband to take classes in India:

My husband can read and write a little. He didn’t go to school but I

told him to learn because I said it was important. A Nepalese guy is

teaching him. I told him you have to learn. In India you don’t need it

so much but who knows about the future. In India if I can’t read or

write or speak English it’s not a problem but here you have to. In

Nepal it doesn’t matter if you can’t.

Despite her lack of education it is clear that Priya had achievedan enormous amount. Not only had she managed to find work inanother country, support herself and her husband, and learnEnglish and to read and write, but she had also paid for her niecesand nephews to be educated, explaining that this is so they can getbetter jobs and do not have to become domestic workers like her.Moreover she told me proudly that, thanks to the money she hassent home to her husband and family, she managed to buy a flat inDelhi, lived in by her husband, build houses for herself, her brotherand her parents in her village, pay for a community temple to bebuilt and give ‘‘a lot of money to charity’’. She recognised the

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A. North / International Journal of Educational Development 33 (2013) 595–603 599

significance of these achievements and was reflective about herexperiences, her engagement with education, the choices she hadbeen able to make and the implications of these for her own life aswell as the lives of family members. When I interviewed her sheexplained that she felt that ‘‘my life would have been easier if I hadlearnt to read and write before’’ and in group sessions she oftenreflected on how different things might have been for her if she hadnot left school so young. Becoming a domestic worker was seen notas a choice but as something that she had to do due to not beingeducated or literate – and therefore able to get a different sort of job –and like other members of the group, she explained that ‘‘no onewants to be a housekeeper’’. However, she also acknowledged that ifshe had not become a domestic worker, with all the difficulties andsacrifices it has entailed, she might not have been able to providesuch extensive financial support to her family and community.

3.2. Sudha

When I arrived [at the session]. . . I asked Sudha if she had got my

text message – which she had. . . She got her phone out to show me

a message she had received from her younger sister who is now

working in Egypt, which she read out to me. . .‘‘My daer [Sudha] di

hi how r u a mainy mainy dashera injoye u ok love u’’. She had also

received one from her sister in Knightsbridge thanking her for her

message and saying happy dashera back. She said she had sent one

to the Knightsbridge sister saying happy dashera – which she

explained is a Hindu festival they celebrate in Nepal.. . .Sudha then started telling me how [another member of the

group] spent so much time speaking on the phone and that she

(Sudha) didn’t like to talk on the phone for too long. She said this

was one of the reasons she thought [the other member of the group]

wasn’t able to learn reading and writing even though her spoken

English is very good. She explained how she (Sudha) practises

reading and writing after she finishes work and can go to her room

and shut the door, until she falls asleep at night – even if she has

had a very long day of work.Extract 1: observation notes 30/09/09

In her mid forties, Sudha was the oldest member of the groupand also the most regular attendee, rarely missing a session. Shetended to arrive earlier than other group members, sometimesbringing with her documents – often worksheets from the Englishclass she attended on Sundays through Kalayaan – that she wantedmy help with before the others arrived. Some weeks we just usedthe time to chat and catch up. That Sudha came to the sessions soearly reflected her enormous determination to learn. When shefirst joined the group she brought with her notebooks into whichshe had copied repeated words hundreds of times. She said she hadcopied them from books or magazines borrowed from her sister orher employers’ daughter in order to ‘‘practise’’, although she couldnot read the words she had written. Between sessions she woulddo the same with any writing we had done in the session, copyingwords and sentences out numerous times.

Sudha told me that she never went to school and, despitespeaking five languages, did not have a chance to learn to read andwrite in any language before coming to the UK. She explained thatshe started working as a domestic worker ‘‘young’’ before marryingand starting a family when she was 19. She came to London in2006, following a period working in Spain. Like Priya, she told methat the employers she worked for initially were not goodemployers. She described being locked in and unable to the leavethe house for over a year before one day escaping while pretendingto throw out the rubbish. With the help of her cousin and friendsshe managed to confront her employer who relinquished herpassport, and, like Priya, at the time of the research was workingfor better employers. Work however was not easy. She oftendescribed being treated disrespectfully by the employers’ two

adult sons, and being required to work extended hours until late atnight when her employers had parties. She had Wednesdayafternoons off, and told me on several occasions that, unlike othermembers of the group who often missed sessions when theiremployers required them to work extra hours, she would not givein to her employers if she was asked to work on Wednesdayafternoons, explaining that she must come to her class.

Sudha had separated – acrimoniously – from her husband,explaining that she no longer sent him any money from her earnings.On occasions she joked that friends had suggested that she shouldfind a new man here but that she was quite happy on her own. Shewould also tease younger members of the group as they discussedgoing back to Nepal to get married (two members of the groupmarried in Nepal during the time our group was active), saying thatonce they had husbands life would become much more complicatedas they would be expected to support them as well as other familymembers. Despite this, family connections were clearly veryimportant to Sudha, and were very evident in the different waysshe spoke about and engaged with literacy and learning. In sessionsshe spoke often – and proudly – about her teenage son, who, at thetime of this research, attended a private school in India, paid for byher wages. She told me that the thought that her son was proud ofher, was one of the reasons she was so happy to have learnt to readand write in English. She also had two daughters in their twenties,both also working as domestic workers abroad. One had a small sonwho was being raised by paternal grandparents in Nepal. Sudha’ssisters also frequently came into conversation. Also domesticworkers, they were living in Egypt, India and London. The sisterin London – mentioned in the extract at the beginning of this section– was an important source of support for her literacy learning, andlater joined some of our sessions.

In our sessions I often encouraged participants to writesomething about themselves as a way of practicing their developingwriting skills. In Sudha’s case a concern with her family – and inparticular her children – was central to these writing efforts, as canbe seen in the following examples of her writing.

Extract 2: Sudha writing in class 03/06/09 ‘‘About me’’

Extract 3: Sudha writing in class 24/06/09 ‘‘My story’’

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Extract 4: Sudha writing in class - 01/07/09 ‘‘My hopes for thefuture’’

Being away from her children was clearly a great sadness forSudha. In extract 3 above she describes feeling ‘‘bad’’ when awayfrom her family and then feeling ‘‘good and happy’’ when she wasback with them and this reflects similar comments she often madeduring our sessions. However she often commented that she had toleave her country and become a domestic worker in order to be ableto support her family, in particular her son, whose school fees shewas paying. When we discussed the future and hope for our livesgoing forward, unlike some of the younger members of the group,who spoke of getting better jobs – enabled they hoped by obtainingindefinite leave to remain in the UK as well as, perhaps, betterliteracy skills – or of getting married, Sudha always spoke of herchildren and her hopes that they would lead happy lives. Like theothers, she too hoped to obtain indefinite leave to remain, largely sothat she could then apply for a visa for her son to be able to join herand be educated in the UK (something she has now achieved).

The importance of her family, of staying in touch with familymembers and maintaining her global social networks of family andfriends, was a significant factor in Sudha’s commitment todeveloping literacy skills. Like all the members of the groupmobile phones formed a key part of Sudha’s communicativepractices: she used her mobile phone on a regular basis and wasconversant in the different sorts of phones and contracts. Early onin our sessions it became clear that sending text messages, andbeing able to read those that she received, was an important aspectof literacy that she wanted help with. She often showed me textmessages she wanted help with reading, although as time went onshe increasingly was able to read them – and reply – herself. Theliteracy event described at the beginning of this section (extract 1)was therefore typical. So too was the global nature of the Dasheramessages described. Mixing English and Hindi, the messageexchanged between two Nepali sisters was written in Egypt andread in London, and through it Sudha was able to connect not onlywith her sister in Cairo but also with a cultural event important toher as a Nepalese woman. While Sudha could also use her phone tocall family members and speak to them directly, she evidently feltthat being able to send and receive messages was important;contrasting her use of text messages to the time the other groupmember spent talking on the phone.

Travel was another key aspect of Sudha’s engagement withparticular transnational forms of literacy. During sessions she oftenspoke about friends who had been back to visit Nepal, and duringthe period over which our group sessions took place she was ableto go to both Nepal and India herself in order to visit family, meetstaff at her son’s school and sort out her bank account. When shereturned from her trip, Sudha was proud to be able to tell me thatshe had managed to fill in immigration forms herself for the firsttime. She described the encounter she had with the Nepaleseimmigration official when she left Nepal. She said that when shehad presented her form, he had treated her with suspicion askingwhy she had filled in the form in English. She responded that thequestions were in English as well as Nepalese. He then queried herUK visa status and asked, rather aggressively, what she was doingleaving Nepal and going to the UK. She said that she told him shehad to go to the UK as there were no jobs for her in Nepal, but that ifhe wanted to get down from his chair and give her his job stampingpassports then she would be very happy to take it and stay in herown country. After some discussion he let her through.

4. Power and vulnerability, agency and constraint in shiftingspaces

As her encounter with the immigration official clearlydemonstrates, like Priya, Sudha does not in any way fit thestereotype of the ‘‘illiterate, disempowered third world woman’’.Both Priya and Sudha are capable, knowledgeable and articulatewomen who have managed to negotiate complex travel andimmigration systems and achieve not only financial independencefor themselves but also inject considerable financial resources intotheir families and communities. Yet it is also clear that this hascome at considerable personal cost. Neither of them consideredbecoming a domestic worker as a choice they made, but rathersomething they had to do. Working as migrant domestic workersmeans that not only were they separated from family but they alsoendured extremely difficult employment conditions.

Priya and Sudha’s stories both point to the way in which theymove – both physically and through forms of communication –between a number of different transnational spaces, or socialfields, which include the wealthy, international (and literate)households within which they work in London; their ownimmediate families – including husband and parents in Priya’scase, children in Sudha’s case – in India, Nepal and elsewhere; theirhome communities and villages in Nepal; their networks ofextended family and friends in the UK and abroad; the English andliteracy classes they attend at the MRC and Kalayaan, whichinclude both other migrants and teachers such as myself; officialspaces associated with immigration such as airport immigration,lawyers offices. In each space they occupy and negotiate differentgendered positions of relative power – and vulnerability – inrelation to others and experience different opportunities andconstraints. This is affected by their ability to draw on a range ofresources, which include the support of their social networks, andtheir financial capital (wages), as well as their emerging literacyskills. Thus, while literacy cannot therefore be seen as the only orkey factor affecting their experiences in these different spaces,their engagement with literacy and learning does play out in smallbut not insignificant ways.

In the households in which they work, their role and position asmigrant domestic workers are clearly gendered. Research into theexperiences of migrant domestic workers points to the complexnature of the asymmetrical gendered relations of power anddependency between female workers and their (male and female)employers (see for example, Anderson, 2000; Williams, 2010).Working as cleaners, cooks and nannies in private households,migrant women take on the reproductive work left when women

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in wealthy households engage in activities – including paidemployment – outside the house, without care and domesticresponsibilities being taken on by male household members. Thiswork is not only considered low status ‘‘women’s work’’ but alsooften entails long working hours and vulnerability to abuse andexploitation (Anderson, 2000; Cox, 2006; Ehrenreich and Hochs-child, 2002; Lalani, 2011; Lutz, 2011; Parrenas, 2001; Poinasamy,2011; Williams, 2010). Both Priya’s and Sudha’s early experiencesas live-in domestic workers in London reveal such vulnerability,apparent, for example, in Priya’s descriptions of poor pay and beinglent out to other people’s houses, in Sudha’s experience of beinglocked in the house, and in both of their experiences of having theirpassports taken by their employers. However, they also revealextraordinary resilience and – constrained – agency. They wereboth able to change their situation, drawing on their social capital,in the form of networks of friends and family in the UK, as well astheir own determination and ingenuity – illustrated by Sudha’sescape as she took out the rubbish – to leave abusive employers.However it is clear that in doing so their alternative options werelimited: whilst, at the time of my research, they were working forbetter employers, they were still employed as domestic workersand experiencing difficult working conditions. Sudha and Priya didhold some power of negotiation within the current householdswithin which they worked, reflected in their ability to come togroup sessions and negotiate visits back to Nepal. However thispower was evidently limited: both were obliged to regularly workextremely long hours, Priya faced ongoing worry and uncertaintywith regard to her visa, and Sudha endured continuing badtreatment by her employers’ sons.

Both Priya and Sudha blamed a lack of education and literacy onhaving to become migrant domestic workers. In group sessions,when we discussed how they used – or needed to use – literacy asmigrant workers, and how learning to read and write since comingto the UK affected their experiences here, their responses, likePriya’s anecdote about being able to read street signs, suggestedthat literacy was seen as important in helping them negotiate lifein the UK outside of their places of work. However, aspects ofreading or writing that relate directly to experiences within theiremployers’ households were rarely mentioned and they claimedthat literacy was not something they needed to use in their jobs.Research by Nabi et al. (2009) has highlighted how domesticworkers in Pakistan do use literacy in their work, for examplereading instructions when preparing breakfast, or writing phonemessages, but that these practices were so deeply embedded thatthey were not recognised by as literacy by the domestic workersthemselves. It is possible that something similar is happening hereand that Sudha and Priya made more use of literacy in theirworking lives than was apparent in our sessions. However the waythey spoke about their experiences suggests that in the highlyliterate household in which they worked their developing literacyskills and efforts to learn to read and write in English were notparticularly valued by other household members or recognised assignificant in enhancing their ability to perform their caring andcleaning duties. Thus, although Sudha was sometimes able to drawon the fact that she must attend ‘‘class’’ as a way of protecting herafternoon off when negotiating hours with her employers, it doesnot appear that their engagement with literacy had had asignificant impact on their status or power within their workplace.However, the still limited nature of their literacy in English didmean that they remained vulnerable to exploitation if they had torely on employers’ help when, for example, reading a letterregarding their immigration status. Here, improving their literacyskills further might eventually lessen this dependence. However,the nature of their live-in work, and the long hours and littlefreedom or privacy entailed, constrained their ability to continueto develop literacy skills, as they had little free time to attend

additional classes or practise privately. In the meantime, the roleplayed by their social networks – as well as support fromorganisations such as Kalayaan – was particularly important inhelping them negotiate literacy demands relating to theiremployment and immigration status.

In contrast to their position within the households in whichthey work, their positioning with regard to their home communi-ties and members of their family in Nepal and India, maintainedthrough contact via mobile phones, their networks of kin in the UK,visits home, and the sending of remittances, appeared verydifferent. Here their narratives suggest that they were held inhigh regard, and, despite their geographical distance, held someinfluence over the decision making of family members, for exampleencouraging them to send their children to school. Here, theirglobal positioning as migrant workers, and, in particular thefinancial capital they held in the form of remittances in hardcurrency, through which they were able to invest in theircommunities, property and education for family members, isclearly significant. However, Sudha’s story also reveals the way inwhich maintaining her transnational social networks supported,and was supported by, her literacy learning. Using her literacyskills to send text messages was both a practical way of keeping intouch, and a way in which she was able to position herself asliterate – someone who has been able to learn to read and write inEnglish – in her communication with family members as well aswith friends. This is something that she clearly felt good about andwas proud to be able to do. Meanwhile Priya’s own success inlearning was not only recognised by her family – she was veryhappy to be able to tell me how proud her parents were of her forlearning to read and write in English – but also played out in theway in which she was able to persuade her husband to learn to readand write (with her financial backing). Their emerging literacyskills in English then, as well as, in Sudha’s case allowing her tocontinue to perform a gendered role as mother and carer throughexchanging texts with her children, also appear to have played arole in enhancing their positioning relative to family andcommunity members from a distance. Perhaps more importantlythey have affected how they feel about themselves as they are ableto assume a literate identity when negotiating these relationships.

Their relationships with their families were however complex.Their stories also point to the way in which they were tightlybound up in a sense of obligation to provide for others. This ishighlighted by Sudha’s warnings to younger group members thatonce married they would simply have more people they wouldhave to provide for and send money to. Although taking on the roleof breadwinner through migration has the potential to contributeto transforming the nature of gender relations at home, and, inSudha’s case may have facilitated her separation from anunsatisfactory husband, the continued obligation that it entailedalso constrained their ability to consider leaving domestic workand return to Nepal. Given the ways in which both Priya andSudha’s lives are so tightly bound up in serving or providing forothers – both in terms of the gendered roles they perform in thetheir households of work, and the breadwinner role they performfor their extended families at home – it is then significant thatSudha, on a number of occasions, also referred to her literacylearning as something she was doing for herself, describing how, atthe end of a long day working for others, she was able to shut thedoor to her room and practise reading and writing on her own.

As Sudha and Priya move between their lives as domesticworkers in the UK and as mothers, sisters, daughters, friends andproviders to families and communities in Nepal, literacy also playsout in their engagement with the actual process of migration, thetravel it entails, and the power relations that characterise thespaces they encounter. This is clearly illustrated by Sudha’s tellingof her discussion with the immigration official in Nepal. Here, in

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proudly relating the story, in many ways she presents herself as‘‘empowered.’’ She was both able to complete the form in Englishand stand up to the official when questioned. Her new literacyskills in English as well as the knowledge that she possessed a validvisa for the UK helped give her the confidence to assert herself inher dealings with the official. However the story is also a reminderof the lack of opportunities she had to learn to read and write inNepalese and her view that, because of her lack of education andsubsequent lack of economic opportunities in Nepal, she had tomigrate in the first place in order to provide for her family.Moreover, it serves to highlight the complex relationship betweenliteracy, language and status in her life. Sudha, like other membersof the group, considered learning to read and write in English to beparticularly important: it is the written language that she had mostneed – and opportunity – to engage with in her life in the UK, and,as an ‘‘international language’’ (see extract 2 above), wasconsidered high status. However, both Sudha and Priya alsoexpressed a desire to learn to read and write in Nepalese: Sudhasometimes brought documents in Nepalese script that her sisterhelped her with to our sessions, and Priya expressed the hopethat once she returned to Nepal she would find a private tutor toteach her.

5. Literacy, empowerment and gender justice?

For both Priya and Sudha, the way in which their engagementwith literacy interacts with the social relations they encounter intheir everyday lives – including gendered relations of power – iscomplex. Sudha and Priya’s literacy practices are clearly gendered,reflected, for example, in the way that Sudha uses texting inperforming her role as mother, carer and provider to her children,and in the way in which their access to literacy learning isconstrained by their domestic responsibilities. However, incontrast to women whose experiences of literacy are exploredin ethnographic studies focusing on literacy in particular localcontexts, where the gendered power relations which affect and areaffected by literacy are often framed in terms of the immediatehousehold or community, Priya and Sudha’s stories both highlightthe way in which, for them, literacy affects and is affected bygendered relations in multiple, transnational spaces. Priya andSudha’s ability to engage in learning, how they are able to draw ontheir new literacy skills in English as cultural capital, and the wayin which this is valued, affect and are affected by not only byrelationships with husbands and families but also by the nature oftheir work as female migrant domestic workers and their genderedposition within employers’ households, their global social net-works and the different transnational social fields among whichthey move.

For both women, obtaining basic literacy skills in English doesnot appear to have had a major influence over their low, andgendered, status within the households within which they live andwork, and their vulnerability to exploitation. Nor has it opened upobvious opportunities for them to leave domestic work. Howeverwhen they move outside of the work space as they travel, attendclasses, and manage their transnational relationships and net-works of family and friends, being able to adopt a literate identity,and, in doing so, feel confident sending text messages, readingstreet names, completing travel documentation, or engaging in thelearning of family members, is clearly important. This, likeethnographic studies conducted in developing countries, high-lights the potential for literacy learning to be empowering forwomen, whereby empowerment is understood not just ineconomic terms but as entailing processes which may involvechanges in identity, status and self esteem. However, it also pointsto the structural inequalities beyond literacy, which constrain theagency of women such as Sudha and Priya, preventing them from

being able to leave unsatisfactory and exploitative workingconditions, and make free decisions about where and how theywant to live. Addressing these inequalities must be an essentialpart of thinking about gender justice for migrant domesticworkers. One aspect of this includes ensuring that legislationprotects the rights of domestic workers and that they are able touse it. In the UK this is no longer the case: since 6 April 2012,Domestic workers who apply to accompany their employers to theUK are tied to one employer, and therefore unable to leave abusiveemployers.

The two NGOs mentioned in this paper – the MRC and Kalayaan– play an important role in supporting migrant domestic workerssuch as Priya and Sudha. Providing spaces for literacy and learning isone aspect of this. Literacy and English learning opportunities formigrant women are often largely focused on concerns aroundcitizenship or employment opportunities, premised on the assump-tion that women have to be helped to integrate into the host countryeconomically, socially and politically (Pomati, 2011; Warriner,2007a). However Priya and Sudha’s stories suggest that for learningto be empowering it must take into account the transnational natureof their lives, the way in which their relative power varies as theymove between different social fields, and how access to literacy, aswell as other forms of social and cultural capital, interacts with thisprocess. This entails recognising their knowledge and achievementsas migrant workers supporting families and communities, as well asthe constraints they experience, and might include, for example,paying attention to the importance of maintaining social networksof family and friends in their own countries and across the globe, andthe ways in which particular forms of literacy might support this.However it is clear that a focus on literacy and learning alone will notensure that migrant domestic workers such as Sudha and Priya areable to avoid abuse and exploitation. Continuing work by Kalayaanto provide additional support and advice to migrant domesticworkers and campaigning to ensure that legislation exists to protectwomen like Sudha and Priya, is therefore also an essentialcomponent of efforts to achieve greater gender justice for migrantwomen.

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