Our keyword topics are tied together by the connection of transnational labor flows and distribution. We intend to investigate several points along this chain of labor: the logistical distribution of labor, the bodies who perform labor, and the bodies who benefit from that labor. We pose the question of who gets to experience convenience and who carries the burden of inconvenience for the comfort of others?

In the case of migrant labor brokerage agencies in Taiwan, working-class Southeast Asian migrant laborers are conscripted into the flows of transnational labor that are mediated by brokers, to whom the workers are made accountable as a transient and therefore vulnerable population. The costs of low-waged labor are externalized onto the migrant workers, who also bear the burden of reproductive care work as Taiwan faces a care worker shortage and general labor shortage crisis.

Sweatshops pose a convenient way for a business headquartered in a nation with high labor standards to avoid that cost and a convenient way for poorer nations to create a massive source of employment. At the same time, sweatshop workers carry the weight of cut costs in their own wages. For example, the $297 gap between the price of a pair of Nike shoes and the wage paid to a Vietnamese sweatshop worker for them. This flow of convenience serves to reinforce unequal structures of economic power.

Donuts are a quick and accessible breakfast for the average working American, yet the Cambodian refugees ensnared in cycles of imagined debt are the ones spending countless hours creating the confectionary breakfast. When one man is uplifted as the king of this wealth amassed from a convenience product, he is exemplified as a refugee who achieved the ultimate American Dream. In this way, our idea of what it means to be American is positioned as the receiver of wealth rather than the producer of convenience.

The electric rice cooker is a device that provides convenience in the form of unburdening the productive/reproductive labor associated with the preparation of food. It saves its user(s) time and effort all the while improving their quality-of-life by guaranteeing consistently-prepared rice and meals. The electric rice cooker’s modern design is able to prepare meals that feel familiar and comforting for individuals across a variety of cultures thanks to ethnographic research conducted during the 1970s through the 1990s as the technology was developed and exported beyond its original Japanese borders.

Together, these keywords: migrant labor brokerage agencies, sweatshops, donut boxes, and electric rice cookers—provide a window into various stages of the transnational flows of labor of convenience.