Au Pair

by Miller , Daniel; Burikova, Zuzana

• ISBN13: 9780745650128
• ISBN10: 0745650120
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-08-09
• Publisher: Polity

Summary

Many families leave their children for years to be looked after by young people about whom they know next to nothing, from places they have barely heard of. Who are these au pairs, why do they come and what is their experience of this arrangement? Do they, for their part, find that they are treated as one of the family, and would they even want to be? After a year of careful research, this book shows how most of our assumptions and expectations about au pairs are wrong. This is the first book devoted to the lives of au pairs, their leisure as well as their work time. We see this world from the eyes of the visitors, and their unique perspective on what lies at the heart of our family life. The book does not flinch from documenting the realities of the situation ETH; the racism and the problematic behaviour of the au pairs themselves, as much as the ignorance and exploitation they can be subject to. The book is a case study in how to come to feel modern life empathetically from the viewpoint of one of those many migrant groups we take for granted and rely on but rarely try to understand.

Author Biography

Zuzana Búriková is a researcher at the Institute of Ethnology SAV, Slovakia and Lecturer at Masaryk University, Czech Republic
Daniel Miller is Professor of Anthropology at University College, London

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Why Not?

An Embarrassing Presence

The Hard Work and the Soft Touch

Sort of English

Bored in Beddlington

Men

Out of Time

Conclusion: Structure, Behaviour and Consequence

Appendix: Academic Studies of Domestic Labour

References

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