Abstract
Abstract: This article concerns migrant domestic labour. It departs from existing analyses of such labour by examining the place of workers' mobility and workers' intimate life histories in the valorisation of migrant domestic labour. Drawing on insights from the literature on the autonomy of migration and on affective labour, this article argues that migrant domestic workers' status as mobile bodies infused with affective histories of maternal care is critical in the constitution of a market for their labour. This history endows migrant domestic workers' labour with unprecedented value, not least because the worker is expected to exude the affects of motherhood authentically in the home of her employer. The analysis forwarded here demands a new understanding of the operations of global care chains and transnational motherhood.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 65-81 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Australian Feminist Studies |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 83 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2 Jan 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2015, © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Funding
This paper is based on two periods of fieldwork I have conducted on migrant domestic workers in Turkey. The first was conducted between 2006 and 2007, as part of my doctoral dissertation on the transformation of domestic work in Turkey following the entry of migrant women from countries of postsocialism into the sector which was submitted to the Department of Sociology at City University of New York, Graduate Center. It was supported by the Istanbul Research Institute and by the American Research Institute in Turkey. The second period of fieldwork was conducted between 2010 and 2011 on the Filipina community in Turkey. It was supported by MiReKoç (Migration Research Program at Koç University).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Istanbul Research Institute | |
| Koç Üniversitesi | |
| American Research Institute in Turkey | |
| MiReKoç |