Born Out of Place: Migrant Mothers and the Politics of International Labor - Softcover

“Every Sunday in Hong Kong, tens of thousands of young women from the Philippines and Indonesia gather in public places . . . to picnic, chat, enjoy a free day, and dream of a better future. In her moving and gripping study of these migrant workers, Nicole Constable recounts their lives, giving special attention to their reproductive experience. Born Out of Place tells poignant stories of maternity and infancy, of abortion and adoption, of hardship and abandonment―thus offering a compelling ethnography of the human cost of labor migration.”―Didier Fassin, Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study

“This book represents an impressive and innovative research effort. The subject matter is timely, and the biographical detail gives a pathos and immediacy to Constable’s narrative, making it possible for us to see the fault lines within the temporary foreign worker regimes found in Hong Kong and throughout the world.”―Rubie Watson, author of Inequality among Brothers: Class and Kinship in South China

“This book is so well written and accessible. . . . Constable is a superb ethnographer: she has truly captured the worlds of her informants in a way that very few ethnographers can.”―Gordon Matthews, Professor of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong

“An expert on gendered migration, Constable deftly shines light on the little-explored topic of women migrants who have babies. Passionately and beautifully written, this book is a must-read for all those interested in the inequities of the global economy, the disposability of low-wage labor, and the panic around women’s bodies, sex, and citizenship.”―Denise Brennan, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Georgetown University

Nicole Constable is Director of Asian Studies and Professor of Anthropology in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and Research Professor in the University Center for International Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Romance on a Global Stage: Pen Pals, Virtual Ethnography, and "Mail Order" Marriages and Maid to Order in Hong Kong: Stories of Migrant Workers.