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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 25:3 (2026) ► pp.459–480

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“We are workers, we are not slaves”

The importance of grassroots discourses on decent work for migrant domestic workers

ORCiD logo with link | The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
ORCiD logo with link | University of the Philippines Diliman
 | Hong Kong University
 | Simon Fraser University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Published online: 25 November 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24257.cat
Abstract
We argue that grassroots participation in multilateral negotiations over norm-setting is important because grassroots discourses differ from those of multilateral organizations. To compare the two, we use sociolinguistic theories that link embodied experience, ideology and discourse. We analyze texts about domestic work from the International Labour Organization (ILO) and a grassroots organization of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB). Findings show that AMCB’s commitment to grassroots migrants, and the embodied experiences of its members and leaders, enables their discourses on “decent work for domestic workers” to be more intersectional, more substantive and more critical than the discourses of the ILO. This case illustrates that even when the overarching norms appear to be the ‘same’, the discourses of grassroots and multilateral organizations still offer fundamentally different images of what constitutes “decent work” and what is required to achieve it.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.International norms and domestic work
    • 2.1The discursive construction and diffusion of norms
    • 2.2Beyond norm diffusion: Multi-scalar advocacy for domestic workers
    • 2.3Substantive, intersectional and critical discourses on (in)decent work
  • 3.Methods: Comparing ILO and AMCB discourses
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Equality as consistency vs. substantive equality
    • 4.2Single-axis vs. intersectional discourses
    • 4.3Governments as the solution or the problem?
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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