Leaving Home
Migration has been a popular subject within the Dutch public discourse for years but is becoming increasingly polarising, hardening and above all dehumanising. The unjust dehumanisation of migrants that initially targeted asylum seekers is now being generalised to include all types of migrants. Consequently, the voice of different groups of migrants, each with their own stories, backgrounds, ambitions and struggles, falls away. This is especially the case for women migrant workers who not only are scrutinised for their legal status but also for their historical framing as a source of cheap labour for the imperialist project. Capitalism and imperialism requires oppressive systems to function by devaluing the labour of certain genders, ethnicities, bodies and any other divergencies from the norm. In the past this has been exemplified in the state-ibuism in Indonesia where women were only appointed administrative and domestic labour for little to nothing. Due to the systemic devaluation of their labour in their home countries, they might seek a “better future” abroad. Only to be confronted with the same systems of oppression, and precarious working and living conditions upon their arrival in countries like the Netherlands where these systems of oppression find their origin.
In this programme Dewi Sofia Cultural worker, curator and research assistant at Framer Framed. Mark Pascual Executive director of Stichting Center for Philippine Concerns and campaigns lead at Migrante Netherlands.More information about the programme
But where there is oppression there is always resistance, a story less often told. In Leaving Home: stories of precarity and resistance from women migrant workers we will therefore take a closer look at the intersection of gender, labour and migration. We will do this through a talk, a close reading of personal essays written by female labour migrant workers from the Philippines and Indonesia, and a letter writing session to show solidarity with these women. During this event we aim to bring back humanity into the conversation and to undermine the arbitrary and destructive binaries and labels capitalism and imperialism imposes on us all.
About the speakers
Mark Pascual is a political refugee and activist from the Philippines. He is executive director of Stichting Center for Philippine Concerns and campaigns lead at Migrante Netherlands.
Dewi Sofia is a cultural worker. She holds an MA in Arts and Culture at Leiden University and primarily works as an exhibitions and research assistant at Framer Framed. Her interests are mostly found in the intersections of contemporary culture and politics, working within themes of gender, queerness, and anti-imperialist resistance. As a cultural worker, her experience is in curating, writing, and research, integrating collective processes and social-justice driven perspectives in her practice. She is also involved in community-based projects which seek to (re)connect members of the diaspora to the history and political realities of Indonesia and the Philippines. Her projects are often centred on the imaginative possibility of reclaiming space and forming South-South solidarities to shake the matrices of coloniality.
Rizqita Naherta (They/Them) is a cultural worker, organiser, and archivist-researcher working collaboratively to nurture archival knowledge of Indonesian queer-marginalized communities and women’s resistance movements that are prone to be forgotten, misapprehended, and lost. Their practice manifests in the assemblage of various living archives built from old scattered media and the stories told in the everyday. Giving homage to their elders that came before them, and recirculating their spirit in the contemporary to counter historical amnesia. They often produce installation, pedagogical activation, relational performances, and community-based events.
Read more The particularities to women's struggles in migrant organisingArticle with a brief recap from a webinar by the International Migrants Alliance
