Moral Encounters: drawing boundaries of class, sexuality and migrancy in paid domestic work (original) (raw)

Moral and Cultural Boundaries in Representations of Migrant Women in Italy

International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, 2007

This article makes use of the concept of boundary-work to explore representations of migrant women. The research is based on 35 life-history interviews with Bulgarian and Hungarian migrant women resident in Italy, and on 18 semi-structured interviews with Italian women, conducted between 2001 and 2003. The analysis compares the distinctions made about migrant women by 'native' Italian women and by migrant women themselves, along the dimensions of 'moral' and 'cultural' boundaries. The article demonstrates the analytical purchase of boundary-work in disentangling the distinctions that underpin processes of inclusion and exclusion, and the construction of self and other.These findings have implications for debates on social and emotional well-being.

The Moral Economy of Domestic and Care Labour: Migrant Workers in Naples, Italy

This article proposes the notion of moral economy as a useful lens for the analysis of migrant domestic and care work. Drawing on ethnographic data collected in Naples, Southern Italy, it argues that paid domestic and care work relationships are based on a moral economy, i.e. on notions of good/bad, just/unjust rather than merely economic profit maximization. There is a tendency to transform labour relationships into family-like relationships due to the locus of domestic work within the privacy of households and the nature of domestic labour relationships as highly personalized. However, in contrast to the existing research literature, many migrant workers feel that being treated like part of the family characterizes the best possible work relationship.

Migrant Masculinities Private and Public Spaces_EGallo and FScrinzi 2019.pdf

Gender, Place and Culture , 2019

This article explores the construction of migrant masculinities in the context of reproductive labour. It focuses on Asian Christian men working as porters in upper middle-class residential buildings in Rome (Italy). This masculinised niche of reproductive labour combines differently gendered chores: feminised tasks (cleaning and caring), which are mainly performed in the most private spaces of the home, and masculinised tasks (maintenance and security), carried out in the public or semi-public spaces of the buildings. The analysis addresses the dearth of studies on the sex-typing of jobs in the context of migrant men’s work experiences. It also contributes to ongoing debates on the geography of reproductive labour and on masculinities and place, by exploring how practices of migrant reproductive labour construct private and public places. The construction of masculinities and place is shaped by the gendered racialisation of migrant men at the wider societal level, which materialises in the construction of ‘dangerous’ and ‘respectable’ urban areas. The article suggests that widespread concerns over religious difference and public security play a key role in defining migrant men’s access to the workplace and in shaping work relations.

Ester Gallo and Francesca Scrinzi, Globalization, masculinities, and the domestic space. Men employing migrant reproductive workers in Italy in: Migratory Men. Place, Transnationalism and Masculinities, edited by Garth Stahl and Yang Zhao London, Routledge, 2023.

Migratory Men. Place, Transnationalism and Masculinities, edited by Garth Stahl and Yang Zhao London, Routledge, 2023

Drawing on qualitative data, this chapter explores native male employers of migrant men who provide paid and home-based care and cleaning services in Italy. Specifically, we focus on Italian men from different class backgrounds and we explore how they assert hegemonic masculinity by acting as 'managers of care' with respect to 'foreign' workers. The analysis threads together emerging studies of migrant men and masculinities-as well as of masculinities and globalization-with the growing scholarship on migrant reproductive labour. We show how male employers' involvement in reproductive labour is relational, performative and enacted in reference to everyday household responsibilities. We highlight the importance of considering the home as a site of encounter between Italian male employers and transnational migrant workers where the reproduction of hegemonic masculinities occurs. The production of hierarchies of transnational masculinities within 'globalised homes' is not only forged upon class and ethnicity but is also influenced by the typology of the domestic chore outsourced and the employers' individual life-cycle. We argue that, based on specific positionalities, native men forge their masculinities through practices and discourses of domestic bounding or unbounding, engaging with migrant male workers or else keeping them at a distance.

Gender, Racism, and Migrant Reproductive Labour in Italy and Europe

Migration, Masculinities and Reproductive Labour, 2016

This chapter locates the issues of racism, masculinities and the IDRL in the specifics of the Italian social and political context, by also connecting its national features to European tendencies. Drawing from the discussion of gendered immigration and social policies in the previous chapter, it shows how, in Europe, these policies are associated with public and political debates that construct racialised hierarchies based on ideas of gender, sexuality and religion. Men of different nationalities are represented as effeminate or, by contrast, are associated with hyper-masculinity, criminal activity and sexual violence. The chapter then considers how gendered immigration policies and representations of migration materialise in the domain of domestic/care labour in Italy. The repertoires used in social construction of 80 Otherness and of national belonging as well as the Italian model of migrants' integration and immigration policies are discussed in connection with the issues of migrant masculinities and domestic/care labour. The discussion points to the Italian specificities with regard to the place of religion in politics and society and the influential role played by the Catholic Church in

MANAGING HOUSEHOLDS, MAKING HOMES–A MORAL ECONOMY OF MIGRANT DOMESTIC AND CARE WORK IN NAPLES

2008

The DPhil thesis titled ‘Managing Households, Making Homes – A Moral Economy of Migrant Domestic and Care Work in Naples’ examines the organisation of migrant paid domestic and care work. It is based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted among three migrant groups employed as domestic and care workers: Sri Lankan (men and women), Polish (women) and Ukrainian (women). The data consists of thematic, indepth interviews and participant observation. Moreover, it includes interviews with Neapolitan employers and experts dealing with migration matters. The thesis contributes to the growing literature on migrant domestic work by developing the notion of moral economy as a tool to analyse the complex cultural and symbolic forms of exchange inherent in this kind of labour. From this perspective and combined with Bourdieu’s theory of practice and intersectional perspectives on ‘race’, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and social class, it examines migrant workers’ strategies of migration and transnational practices, as well as the everyday practices of domestic and care work in Neapolitan households. As the title proposes, the main aim of the research is to offer a dynamic perspective to the subject of migrant domestic and care work by bringing together migrants’ strategies of caring and home-making and the everyday practices of Neapolitan housekeeping and caring. On a macro-level, the thesis offers new perspectives on how a familialistic welfare regime intersects with gender and migration regimes as well as with a specific culture of caring and housekeeping.

Negotiating Social Boundaries and Private Zones: The Micropolitics of Employing Migrant Domestic Workers

2003

The employment of migrant domestic workers has turned the private home into a contested terrain where employers and workers negotiate social boundaries and distance from one another on a daily basis. Based on in- depth interviews with Taiwanese employers and Filipina migrant workers, this article explores how the groups negotiate two sets of social boundaries in the domestic politics of food, space, and privacy: socio-categorical boundaries along the divides of class and ethnicity/nationality, and socio-spatial boundaries segregating the private and public spheres. Along these two dimensions I create two typologies to analyze a variety of boundary work conducted by employers and workers in this global-local, public-private matrix.

Migrant masculinities in-between private and public spaces of reproductive labour: Asian porters in Rome

Gender, Place & Culture, 2019

This article explores the construction of migrant masculinities in the context of reproductive labour. It focuses on Asian Christian men working as porters in upper middle-class residential buildings in Rome (Italy). This masculinised niche of reproductive labour combines differently gendered chores: feminised tasks (cleaning and caring), which are mainly performed in the most private spaces of the home, and masculinised tasks (maintenance and security), carried out in the public or semi-public spaces of the buildings. The analysis addresses the dearth of studies on the sex-typing of jobs in the context of migrant men's work experiences. It also contributes to ongoing debates on the geography of reproductive labour and on masculinities and place, by exploring how practices of migrant reproductive labour construct private and public places. The construction of masculinities and place is shaped by the gendered racialisation of migrant men at the wider societal level, which materialises in the construction of 'dangerous' and 'respectable' urban areas. The article suggests that widespread concerns over religious difference and public 2 security play a key role in defining migrant men's access to the workplace and in shaping work relations.

Building boundaries in making policies. Exploring the local construction of migrants in multicultural Italy

JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1582324, 2022

The paper provides ethnographic insight into the social construction of migrants by examining the everyday working of the reception system in one of Italy’s regions that is most advanced in terms of multicultural policies. Focusing on migrants’ encounters with the professionals employed in two social services, the article sheds new light on the multi-layered forms of discrimination that take place in a controversial arena in which institutions and policies operate at different levels. On one hand, I argue that the prevailing essentialized or racialized categorisation of ‘foreign users’ framed in the ambiguous context of Italian bureaucracy conveys a form of inequality that reflects the broader asymmetries between the state, local institutions and migrant minorities. On other hand, I explore the discretionary power different categories of workers exercise in their treatment of migrants, highlighting the central role local agencies and their staff play in building symbolic boundaries in Italian society.