Play and Counter-Conduct: Migrant Domestic Workers on TikTok

This paper examines how migrant domestic workers subvert domination, exploitation and subjection through performances on TikTok videos. Through this confessional social medium, workers exercise a form of autonomy in severely restrictive employment and living conditions, where collective action may not only be improbable but also illegal. I argue that these videos demonstrate Foucauldian counter-conduct or the “art of not being governed so much.” Counter-conduct is an exercise of agency which transforms the self and others through relations of power. It is a form of resistance distinct to a category of workers who have limited access to the public sphere due in part to the gendered nature of cooking, cleaning and caring. Domestic work is not normally included in labour laws and the place of employment are employers’ private homes. This makes it difficult to organize or make rights claims. I build on a Foucauldian ‘analytics of resistance’ to examine the practices, mentalities and subjectivities performed by migrant domestic workers in videos produced at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, a period of tremendous stress on households. These videos became a popular medium among workers in the Middle East to express themselves, alleviate isolation and connect with others. In so doing, so-called ‘modern slaves,’ enact freedom, already present, as subjects of ethics and politics.