This project aims at understanding the experience of Nepalese women as members of an ethnic minority in postcolonial Hong Kong. It focuses on women's life goals, strategies and feelings as they fulfilled three important gender roles, namely daughter, wife, and mother, who traverse over space moving from Nepal their home country to Hong Kong as the first migration destination, and then onward to the United Kingdom. By juxtaposing ethnographic data of women from three generations, this study looks at the interface of gender, ethnic minority identity and social capital, and arrives at an analysis of the relationship between transnational mobility and social marginalization of women migrants.

The Nepalese community is the smallest ethnic minority groups in Hong Kong. According to the 2001 Census, it consisted of 13,000 persons and made up 0.2% of the population (Census and Statistics Department 2002). Unofficial estimations show there may be twice the number residing in Hong Kong. As tight-knit kin groups living alongside their Chinese neighbors, the Nepalese people share many of the problems and concerns faced by fellow ethnic minorities. The common issues include: 1) social avoidance as a result of perceived or real discrimination by mainstream society; 2) a lack in the mainstream languages, English, but especially Chinese, which has led to restricted communication; 3) as a result of the above, limited access to social capital, which reflects in low participation in important networks such as the professions; and 4) a lack in information (such as on health, housing, and social service) that is essential to improving the quality of life. These issues cumulate in the overall deficient participation of social life and in turn contribute to the perpetuation of poverty and incapacity in upward social mobility.

Compared to their male counterparts, Nepalese women typically are faced with more serious problems in education, employment and health. They remain a marginalized social group and often victims of cultural stigmatization. These are aggravated by the gender division of labor in the family system in which women are subordinated to men due to conservative gender concepts, religious expectations, and parental control over female mobility. Nepalese women are less able to benefit from social development that Hongkongese or their own men folk have enjoyed, and are doubly marginalized by both the host society and their own community. A voiceless group, and invisible from mainstream society, Nepalese women can be seen as a ghettoized enclave, although ironically they commonly reside in urban and crowded districts in Hong Kong, and in fact were the nodes of family and kinship networks across international borders. Interviews of individual women migrants over three generations show that factors such as the patriarchal family system and gender roles in Nepalese culture, male-centered and discriminatory practices in mainstream Chinese society, and lack of government sensibility, have contributed to the ghettoization of Nepalese women. By comparing the changes in the critical areas over three generations, the study seeks to identify women's agency vis-à-vis intervening factors such as parental authority, family system, and ethnic policy. Women's agency in household power relationship, in the negotiation of citizenship, and in particular their role in maintaining a transnational network will be examined.

Fieldwork was carried out primarily in Hong Kong in 2006 and 2007. Comparative work was done in Nepal (Pokhara and Kathmandu) and the UK. This included individual interviews, focus group discussions, as well as participant observation in family, community and religious activities. Other field sites included ethnic organizations, small businesses, parks, churches, and salons. The study will contribute to the theorization of ethnic relations in urban settings in a globalized world. On the policy level, it is hoped that this research will develop an analytic model for understanding ethnic groups specific to the Hong Kong situation, which will inform frontline workers and policy makers in the areas of public health, education, and social service.

Reference

Census and Statistics Department. 2002. The Hong Kong 2001 Population Census. Hong Kong: HKSAR Government.