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Part of
Identity Struggles: Evidence from workplaces around the world
Edited by Dorien Van De Mieroop and Stephanie Schnurr
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 69] 2017
► pp. 427–444

Chapter 23
‘We’re only here to help’

Identity struggles in foreign domestic helper narratives

This chapter draws on a large corpus of life stories of foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) in Hong Kong. Narratives were recorded at a church shelter that provides temporary accommodation to domestic workers, and the analyses focus on the identity struggles the women are engaged in. They have to accept an enforced identity as maids, who cannot even claim the right to be respected as human beings, but they are also struggling to claim a positive identity as ‘helpers’ who are in Hong Kong to serve God and their families. The chapter argues that the women’s identity as Christian servants allows them to overcome their hardships. It also argues that scholars need to pay attention to how FDHs label themselves. It considers the women’s testimonies about themselves and it argues that marginalised groups should label themselves in ways that are meaningful to them.

Keywords: foreign domestic helper, enforced identity, marginalisation, Biblical testimonies, religious identity, linguistic labelling
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The study
    • Theoretical and methodological frameworks
    • Data description
  • Data analysis
    • The subservient helper
    • ‘My employer is good!’
    • Narrative ‘self’ and ‘other’
    • Servants of God
    • The help
  • Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 26 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.69.23lad
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Cited by 4 other publications

Ho, Janet
2020. Discursive representations of domestic helpers in cyberspace. Discourse Studies 22:1 ► pp. 48 ff. DOI logo
Ladegaard, Hans J.
2019. Reconceptualising ‘home’, ‘family’ and ‘self’: identity struggles in domestic migrant worker returnee narratives. Language and Intercultural Communication 19:3 ► pp. 289 ff. DOI logo
Ladegaard, Hans J.
2020. Language competence, identity construction and discursive boundary-making: Distancing and alignment in domestic migrant worker narratives. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2020:262 ► pp. 97 ff. DOI logo
Yu, Yating
2024. Media representations of foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong: a corpus-assisted discourse analysis. Text & Talk 44:1 ► pp. 97 ff. DOI logo

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