The aim of this thesis is to understand how the political mobilisation of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) employed in Lebanon started and continued. It also tries to comprehend how some of them could found a politically active collective of MDWs, the Alliance of Domestic Workers in Lebanon (Alliance), by analysing what factors enabled and restrained the open political activism of MDWs from their first steps as activists until now. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with two founding members and seven international and Lebanese organisations, the MDWs´ political mobilisation is chronologically recaptured. Extending Lahusen´s definition of political mobilisation, the thesis critically reflects on Johnston´s concept for protest to evolve in repressive states. The analysis shows that the women activists are left in a lawless position and refer to the free spaces of Lebanese and international non-profit organisations, where their activism begins. These organisations help the women to build up their protest capital, enabling them to start their own group, the Alliance. Within their own group they organise themselves not only against the injustice they experience as MDWs but also emancipate themselves from their dependency on the NGOs. The findings approve that though international and Lebanese organisations have played a crucial part in successfully mobilising the women, the MDWs´ experience of lack of influence inside these free spaces, shapes the group´s actions, collective identity and course. Their political mobilisation can be seen as a long-term, organic process, in which knowledge, collective identity, collective action and experience are tightly interwoven and are the motor behind the members´ activism.

Thesis (M. A. (African Languages)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / The main aim of this study is to examine abuse of domestic workers with special reference to Xitsonga drama, Gija wanuna wa matimba hi HSV Muzwayine na Bill T Mageza Na Vatulu va ka gaza hi H.S.V. Muzwayine. This study also indicates characters who are abused and those who causes this abuse. The first chapter reveals the general outline of the study, the problem statement, the aim. The most important terms of the study have been explained in this chapter so as to reveal what is expected to be analyzed. Some of the definitions of the Constitution have been defined. Chapter two gives a short summary of the literature Review . Chapter three defines methodology and analyse general themes. Chapter five deals with the general summary of this mini-dissertation. The recommendations for further research have been indicated in this chapter. / The University of Limpopo

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies / See the attached abstract below

This dissertation studies how the Indonesian state facilitates the migration of its female citizens for employment as domestic workers in Hong Kong. Applying the research perspective of ethnographic migration and border regime analysis, I scrutinize the multiplicity of state and non-state practices in one of Asia’s major ‘labor brokerage’ countries. Building on a 12-month multi-sited ethnography in Indonesia and Hong Kong, the study sheds light on the desired and lived subjectivities of the workers and asks how these negotiate visions of national development and official expectations brought forward to them. Informed by Foucauldian, postcolonial, and feminist perspectives, I carve out how a variety of actors are invested in making Indonesia’s migrant domestic workers more respectable. I introduce the concept of respectability and situate official notions of the ‘ideal migrant’ in aspirations to modernize Indonesian brokerage on the one hand and in discourses that circle around national dignity on the other. I discuss respectability in light of the tensions inherent in labor brokerage. I show that in their subjective practices, migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong challenge official strivings for respectability, thus engaging in everyday politics from below that have repercussions on the Indonesian society. The dissertation extends earlier studies that highlight the role of gendered morality in disciplining migrant labor force. In addition, it incorporates notions of progressiveness and class distinction and points out that negotiations over migrants’ subjectivities are indicative of fundamental contestations over the self-conceptions of labor brokerage states. By examining a sending state in the Global South, it provides a global view and productively connects research on transnational migration in Asia with ethnographic migration and border regime analyses, which have hitherto mainly focused on European and North American border regimes. The dissertation gives insights in how transnational labor migration shapes the modes in which questions of (national) belonging and visions of societal well-being are negotiated in post-authoritarian Indonesia.

This thesis explores why shaʿbī (roughly, ‘ordinary’) Moroccans so often talk about their domestic workers as daughters, what this means for workers and employers, and how this is changing as community gives way to market. It brings together ethnographic study of urban shaʿbī society, of unmarried rural women who work as domestics, and of the communities from which the latter migrate. Drawing on anthropological discussions of kinship and fosterage, the thesis examines the fading tradition of ‘bringing up’ in which, according to a moral economy, a ‘known’ rural girl could properly be placed in the homes of wealthier Moroccans until marriage. This is giving way to new arrangements in which ‘unknown’ workers are paid a wage and may not stay long, but in which the ethics of charity, religious reward and gratitude still inform expectations from both sides. Geared to play out among neighbours, or at least well-known clients, over a lifetime, these ethics are being disrupted by the easy-come-easy-go of strangers. The thesis contributes to some fundamental concerns of economic anthropology: the atomisation of market exchange, the growing importance of physical marketplaces, and the meanings encoded in a monetary wage versus payment in kind. By putting together perspectives from domestics’ leisure time and life back home, it also questions the relationship between the commodification of labour and individualism. Finally, the thesis discusses a draft law which, if enforced, would mean employing domestics no longer made sense for shaʿbī Moroccans, state intervention respresenting a move away from local forms of empowerment and community. At a broader level, the thesis is concerned with households as internally hierarchical units linked together through exchange to make up society and explores the gendered dimension of household economy in a wider world. This, of course, reaches beyond Morocco, and parallels are suggested with English domestic service.

Migration has taken place throughout human history. However, push and pull factors for migration have changed, and some have not been identified during long periods of time. Since 1970, migration studies have  paid more attention to the role of women in migration processes, noting that patterns in migration are sometimes similar to men, but many other times differ, this is also known as the feminization of migration. Women, like men, migrate in search for a better future and new opportunities. Moreover, women migrant workers migrate to provide better future for their families back home. However, this migration process leaves great exposure to abuse and exploitation for both men and women. Feminist research argues, however, that this vulnerability is also gendered, affecting women and men differently. This study aims to contribute to understand the paradox of the agency of women migrant workers on the one hand, and vulnerabilities on the other, from the perspective of migrants themselves. Eleven interviews were conducted with women migrant workers in Amman. Some of the findings of this study show that the interviewees choose to migrate mainly due to economic needs, familial constraints and social structures,   which in turn influence their power over their rights and situation, leaving them in vulnerable conditions prone to abuse. Moreover, the alternatives for migration are limited by social and economic structures, in addition to lack of knowledge of rights and obligations.

In this thesis, I look at the mobilization of the domestic workers in Brazil as a social movement. In Brazil, the domestic workers have managed to organize continuously for over eight decades using both informal and formal mechanisms to connect workers all over the country in unique ways. By viewing these women and the ways in which they have organized in the framework of a social movement, we can begin to identify their repertoires of contention and how those repertoires have contributed to the successes of the movement. In order to guide this investigation, I ask, how has the doméstica movement in Brazil been successful in reducing the vulnerability of domestic workers? Throughout the development of the domestic workers movement in Brazil, the participants have shaped their repertoires of contention to embody their intersectional narrative and conceptualized it to reduce the vulnerability of domestic work. I argue throughout this work that, as the movement became more successful and better organized, the vulnerability of domestic workers declined. I consider this vulnerability to be a combination of informality associated with the profession for domestic work and the lack of legal protections which apply to domestic workers. This work is a single unit case study analyzing solely the doméstica movement in Brazil from the mid-1930s to the present. I gauge success primarily using two types of within-case observations: 1.) process-tracing through the historical trajectory of the movement to understand the development of the repertoires of contention within four distinct waves of organizing; and, 2.) comparative analysis of official statistics on indicators of the level of informality associated with domestic work.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T15:22:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao janaina.pdf: 2369881 bytes, checksum: 679ad650c23e6468623313f97174c5b0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-12-18 / This dissertation analyzes the relationship between popular segments of society - especially the category of domestic workers - with the media, consumerism and beauty. The reason for our choice of domestic workers is because this profession has, simultaneously, many characteristics that allow it to be considered as subaltern: its undervaluation due to hybridizations that come from the times of legal slavery; the current labor laws, very different from the ones regarding other professions; the low income and the mainly feminine character of the profession. Our idea, therefore, is to look at consumers culture - especially the part of it connected to beauty, which comprehends fashion, body and beautifying strategies in general, all of those concepts intimately intertwined with women s history - from the viewpoint of a subaltern group. One of the ways through which consumers culture and hegemonic concepts such as the need for beauty are spread through society is the media, nowadays practically ubiquitous, due to its great accessibility through TV, radio, movies, newspapers, internet, cellphones, graffiti, billboards, waiting rooms etc. Wherever there is a potential consumer to be found, there will be at least one media vehicle. Its ability for content coverage and repetition allows media to be considered a very important intermediator between individuals and the world, becoming a relevant builder and repeater of cultural concepts, which will influence the subjectifying processes in people. In order to investigate this influence, 31 domestic workers in Goiânia were interviewed, with questions about their beauty concepts and their favorite mediatic programs. Both discourses were related to the objective of understanding whether there is a beauty concept carried out by the media, how the domestic workers perceive it, and what are their strategies to comply (or not) to them, assuming that domestic workers may relate to these contents in different ways: by making them their own, by negotiating with them, or even by denying them. That is because it is understood that lower segments of society are in constant relationship with the hegemonic contents, and are therefore co-participants in the forces that build culture day by day. / Esta dissertação analisa a relação de setores populares, mais especificamente as trabalhadoras domésticas, com mídia, consumo e beleza. A escolha da categoria de trabalhadoras domésticas se deu por esta profissão carregar, ao mesmo tempo, várias características que fazem com que se possa considerá-la como subalternidade: a desvalorização devido a hibridações desde a escravidão, as diferenças jurídicas em relação a outras profissões, o baixo poder aquisitivo e o caráter prioritariamente feminino da profissão. A idéia então é de lançar um olhar a partir da subalternidade para a cultura de consumo, especialmente o ligado à beleza, que compreende moda, corpo e estratégias de embelezamento em geral, conceitos intimamente ligados à história das mulheres. Uma das formas pelas quais a cultura de consumo e os conceitos hegemônicos - como o da necessidade de beleza - são disseminados na sociedade é por meio da mídia, que hoje tem um caráter quase onipresente , devido à facilidade ao seu acesso, como TV, rádio, cinema, revistas, jornais, internet, celulares, muros, outdoors, salas de espera, enfim, há mídia onde há um possível consumidor. A capacidade de abrangência e de repetição de conteúdos faz com que a mídia possa ser considerada como um importante mediador entre as pessoas e o mundo, se tornando um importante construtor e reprodutor de conceitos culturais, que vão influenciar nos processos de subjetivação dos indivíduos. Para se averiguar esta influência, entrevistaramse 31 trabalhadoras domésticas em Goiânia, investigando quais os seus conceitos de beleza, e qual a programação midiática mais consumida por elas. Ambos os discursos foram relacionados com o objetivo de se entender se há um conceito de beleza veiculado pela mídia, como as profissionais o percebem, e quais são as estratégias para se adequar ou não a eles. Parte-se do pressuposto de que as trabalhadoras domésticas podem se relacionar com esses conteúdos de várias formas: se apropriando deles, negociando com eles, e também os negando. Isso porque entende-se que os setores populares estão em constante relação com os conteúdos hegemônicos, e, portanto, são interlocutores e co-participantes nas forças que constroem diariamente a cultura.

Absract This master thesis deals with an analysis of media discourse of domestic workers in the Czech Republic. The work was based on discourse analysis of media articles generated by Anopress, which is a professional supplier of media monitoring. Through analyzing the way how media portrays institution of domestic workers, the paper tries to point out the media discourse that produces an image of domestic workers as an attractive products and organization of domestic work as a mediator for balancing public and private lives of women. Through concepts of feminist research I am going to try to prove that the media discourse is based on essentialist and discriminatory practices that have a major impact on shaping the image of institution of domestic workers and actors who are connected with this institution. Since this is a media production of information's construction thus it has a significant influence on the conceptualization of institutions of domestic workers in public sphere. Keywords: rental housework, domestic workers, media discourse, discourse analysis

The Domestic Workers Skills Development Project, funded by the National Skills Fund, was designed to improve the skill levels of domestic workers in South Africa. It also was intended to address their historical lack of education and to advance their socio-economic circumstances. This study investigates the implementation of this project within the framework of community development. Basadi Pele Foundation, a Non-Governmental Organisation, was a participant in this project. The central question was how to empower marginalised women through skills development. This implies a learning process for domestic workers and all involved. Different learning theories are investigated to develop an understanding of how these illiterate adult women learned during this opportunity. The conclusion reached by this study is that a gender sensitive environment, created by government institutions and the NGO involved, enabled domestic workers to change their lives and circumstances; enhancing this project and contributing to its success. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)