The Kitchen Spoon's Handle: Transnationalism and Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids

by Michele Ruth Gamburd

Overview

A common Sinhala proverb states, "A woman's understanding reaches only the length of the kitchen spoon's handle." In this beautifully written book on the effects of female migration from Sri Lanka, Michele Ruth Gamburd shows that the length of that handle now spans several thousand miles, rather than a mere twelve inches.During the past twenty years, a great many Sri Lankan women have left their homes and families to work as housemaids in the wealthy oil-producing states of the Middle East. Gamburd explores global and local, as well as personal, reasons why so many women leave to work so far away. Focusing primarily on the home community, rather than on the experiences of the workers abroad, she vividly illustrates the impact of the migration on those left behind and on the migrants who return.As migrant women take on the formerly masculine role of breadwinner, Gamburd explains, traditional concepts of the value of "women's work" are significantly altered. She examines the effects of female migration on caste hierarchies, class relations, gender roles, and family interactions.The Kitchen Spoon's Handle skillfully blends the stories and memories of returned migrants and their families and neighbors with interviews with government officials, recruiting agents, and moneylenders. The book provides a rich and sensitive portrait of the confluence of global and local processes in the lives of the villagers. Gamburd presents a sophisticated, yet very readable, discussion of current theories of power, agency, and identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801486449
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	10/24/2000
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michele Ruth Gamburd is Professor of Anthropology at Portland State University.

What People are Saying About This

Deborah Winslow

Tremendously engaging, The Kitchen Spoon's Handle presents a deft blending of analytical levels that is both a model for anthropologists who recognize the limitations of traditional village studies and a vindication of the irreplaceable power of face-to-face ethnographic field research. Through the housemaids' own stories, we hear how they resist, conform, and innovate in the struggle to find their bearings within overlapping communities and identities.

Editorial Reviews

This book's title draws on a traditional Sinhala proverd on women's domesticity, namely that a woman's mind is no longer than a kitchen spoon's handle. But Gamburd carefully outlines the process whereby, with transnational migration to work as domestic workings in the Middle East, the handle has come to reach several thousand miles rather than a mere twelve inches.

International Migration Review - Darshini Anna De Zoysa

The Kitchen Spoon's Handle thus illustrates how the global implementation of Western bourgeois hegemony will not proceed without a few ructions; ructions that will excite the scholar and entice the developer to facilitate the implementations with an appropriate ideology of care. The book is a useful contribution for the enhancement of such an ideology... Her book should appeal to academics and especially undergraduate students in anthropology and other disciplines such as labour studies, women studies and developmental studies.

The Australian Journal of Anthropology - Rohan Bastin

Michele Ruth Gamburd's ethnography is a richly detailed and carefully argued examination of power relations in Naeaegama, a southern Sri Lankan village... The book is an excellent analysis of the social relations underlying concepts such as identity, power, caste, and class.

--Caitrin Lynch, Johns Hopkins University "The Journal of Asian Studies"

One of the strengths of this book is the juxtaposing of multiple views on the process of women's emigration. This ethnographically rich project is based on more than 18 months of fieldwork and extensive interviews with returning migrant women and other central actors in the emigration process... The retention of gender inequality is one of the most striking narratives presented in The Kitchen Spoon's Handle.

--Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, University of Wisconsin-Madison "Contemporary Sociology"

The Kitchen Spoon's Handle thus illustrates how the global implementation of Western bourgeois hegemony will not proceed without a few ructions; ructions that will excite the scholar and entice the developer to facilitate the implementations with an appropriate ideology of care. The book is a useful contribution for the enhancement of such an ideology... Her book should appeal to academics and especially undergraduate students in anthropology and other disciplines such as labour studies, women studies and developmental studies.

--Rohan Bastin, James Cook University of North Queensland "The Australian Journal of Anthropology"

This book's title draws on a traditional Sinhala proverd on women's domesticity, namely that a woman's mind is no longer than a kitchen spoon's handle. But Gamburd carefully outlines the process whereby, with transnational migration to work as domestic workings in the Middle East, the handle has come to reach several thousand miles rather than a mere twelve inches.

--Darshini Anna De Zoysa, University of Sussex "International Migration Review"

From the Publisher

Gamburd (anthropology, Portland State Univ.) here studies the effects of the long-term migration of Sri Lankan women to Arab countries, where they work as maids, providing most of the income in their native villages. Few local Sri Lankan men can find appropriate work at home or abroad, upsetting traditional gender roles and potentially contributing to familial discord and financial problems. The book uncovers, but does not get to the bottom of, family disagreements over money. Gamburd's narrators take no responsibility for extortionate interest rates on loans and other avaricious practices, and they blame everyone but themselves for their difficulties. The case histories are not synthesized or well analyzed, but the quantitative summaries are good. Although written for undergraduates, this book is most useful for advanced readers willing to wade through feminist, Marxist, and Foucauldian theories that are disconnected from the case materials (which, if anything, suggest the inappropriateness of these models). Recommended only for research collections in socioeconomic development and women's studies.--Jay H. Bernstein, Fordham Univ. Lib., Bronx, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Michele Ruth Gamburd's ethnography is a richly detailed and carefully argued examination of power relations in Naeaegama, a southern Sri Lankan village... The book is an excellent analysis of the social relations underlying concepts such as identity, power, caste, and class.

The Journal of Asian Studies - Caitrin Lynch

One of the strengths of this book is the juxtaposing of multiple views on the process of women's emigration. This ethnographically rich project is based on more than 18 months of fieldwork and extensive interviews with returning migrant women and other central actors in the emigration process... The retention of gender inequality is one of the most striking narratives presented in The Kitchen Spoon's Handle.

Contemporary Sociology - Rhacel Salazar Parrenas