DOMÉSTICA Domestic Work in So Cal’s Global City
Feb 23, 2016
DOMÉSTICADomestic Work in So Cal’s Global City
“the new world domestic order”
• The new world• Early modern roots of globalization = European colonization + native
genocide• Los Angeles Southern California Western Hemisphere (US-
Mexico-Central America)• The new world order (Novus ordo seclorum)
• Post-WWI (Woodrow Wilson) & Post-WWII (UN, NATO,IMF)• Post-Cold War – fall of Soviet Communism & rise of Western
capitalism• Post-9/11 – globalized economies & permeability of borders
• The new world domestic order• Global cities = survival circuits + invisible domestic labor
So Cal Survival Circuits• Los Angeles as global city
• Deindustrialization = growing gap between rich and poor
• Economic center of Pacific Rim = growing service economy
• Pre-existing circuits of imperialism + Bracero Program + MX economic crises feminization of Mexican labor
• Civil War + Military Insurrections increased Central American immigration
Social Reproduction
• Aka “reproductive labor” = “the myriad of activities, tasks, and resources expended in the daily upkeep of homes and people” (Sotelo 23)
• Who performs reproductive labor and why? • Naturalized by gender• Naturalized by race/class
• Home & domestic space as contradictory site of privacy/intimacy as well as labor/exploitation
• Complexity of race, gender, class in patriarchy (Sotelo 22-23)
Tran
snat
iona
l • “To be a good mother, I had to leave my children”• Maternal material duty versus
maternal affective duty• Competing models of
motherhood• Western ideals of “isolationist,
privativized mothering” (Sotelo 25)• Dedicated mother/housewife• Working mother
• Career woman/household manager• Mothering for hire domestic
caregivers and transnational motherhood
• Debates over good mothering = simultaneously resisting and rehearsing gendered, racialized, and classed strictures M
othe
rhoo
d
La Doméstica• Live-in nanny/housekeeper
• Lack of boundaries, lowest wages• Most exploitative of newest
immigrants – “the bridging occupation”
• Food & dehumanization (Sotelo 35)• Live-out nanny/housekeeper
• Clearer boundaries, relatively higher pay
• Possibility for family life• Housecleaner
• Higher hourly wages, shorter work week, flexibility
• Constant cultivation of network & route of casas
Informal Labor• Informal vs formal labor
• Taxed and monitored by governmental agencies; subject to regulation and accountability
• Informality of hiring practice social networks, references and reputations
• lack of official pay standardization• Decrease of wages with longer work tenure
(83)• Withholding of information between
employers (86)• lack of clarification of worker’s duties
and employer responsibilities• Agencies = formalizing the informal for certain nannies (103)
• Lack of clear etiquette for termination = blow ups & white lies
Maternalism vs Personalism• Formal boss-employee relationship vs
informal relationship between employer & domestic worker• Complicated by labor performed in private
sphere• Determined by differing positions of privilege &
power• Maternalism – “a one-way relationship,
defined primarily by the employer’s gestures of charity, advice, assistance, and gifts” (207-208)• White women helping out brown women
• Personalism – “a two-way relationship, albeit still asymmetrical [that] involves the employer’s recognition of the employee as a particular person” (208)• As necessary improvement to invisibility &
dehumanization (201)