The New Maids Transnational Women and the Care Economy

by Lutz, Helma

• ISBN13: 9781848132870
• ISBN10: 1848132875
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-15
• Publisher: ZED BOOKS

Summary

The New Maids is a pioneering book, grounded on rich, empirical evidence, which examines the relationship between globalization, transnationalism, gender and the care economy. Expertly addressing the thorny questions that surround the increasing number of migrant domestic workers and cleaners, child-carers and caregivers who maintain modern Western households, the author argues that domestic work plays the defining role in global ethnic and gender hierarchies. Using a central ethnographic study of immigrant domestic workers and their German employees as its starting point, The New Maids uses the voices of such women themselves to provide unique conceptual and evidential support for this vital new approach argument. This exciting book will not only enhance the readers understanding of the new care-economy; it is also sets standards for feminist global methodology.

Author Biography

Helma Lutz is Professor of Women and Gender Studies at the department of social sciences at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University of Frankfurt, Germany.

Table of Contents

Introduction * The 'new' redistribution of domestic work * The private household as a world market for female migrant labour * Studying transnational lifestyles * Domestic work – just an ordinary job? * Exploitation or a community of confidantes? Emotional work in the household * Transnational motherhood * Being illegal * Migrant women in the globalization trap?