Experiments in enchantment: Domestic workers, upcycling and social change

Abstract

This paper explores the practice and presence of enchantment (Bennett, 2001) in the project Sustainable Sunday Couture which featured upcycled gowns designed by Elpie Malicsi, a Filipino domestic worker based in Hong Kong. We analyse the creative transformation of space, materials and labour in catalyzing affective, intellectual and ethical disruptions for public audiences and the new potentialities that may contribute to the respect and recognition of domestic workers’ creative contributions in Hong Kong. In exploring the creative transformation of migrant labour into creative communities and waste into fashion, we are considering the transformation of that which is foundational to but often under-recognized in the operation of the city. In doing so, we examine the potential and risks of enchantment in contributing to social change. The ethics of enchantment, in contrast to the ethics in enchantment, is perhaps most salient when the locus for enchantment is situated within a context of inequality. We argue that any analysis of the practice of enchantment must be firmly embedded in an analysis of power and social difference, particularly when understanding the effect of enchantment in social change efforts.