This thesis predominantly seeks to explore the entanglements of class, patriarchy and global capital embedded within North Indian domestic work. The thesis firstly examines how the neoliberal policies of the 1980s and 90s shattered village economies and brought about the mass displacement of tribals and landless farmers, forced to leave the land they have cultivated for generations in pursuit of employment in India’s urban centers. While male migrants often find work in the informal sector and settle in slum communities, female rural migrants constitute the immense population of domestic workers within the confines of urban middle class homes. This thesis explores the histories, past and present, of Indian cultures of servitude that have brought migrant motherhood to a crisis point. The interdisciplinary analyses of the political economy of intimate labor are supplemented by a micro-level analysis of my own positionality within a middle class urban home in Jaipur, Rajasthan to bring an alternative perspective to the multiplicity of dialogues about ethical relationships with domestic workers. This thesis ultimately aims to open lines of inquiry about the inequalities embedded within domestic work in order to bring about a radical re-imagining of one’s own participation in the layers and chains of exploitative labor.

By caring for children, the elders and the ill, care workers are fundamental for the global economy and for peoples’ well-being. As confirmed in this thesis, the majority of domestic workers are migrant women. Historically, however, women’s work has been unpaid, considered unproductive, and the significance of (migrant) women’s care work has widely been ignored in state policies. Arguing that migration research has overlooked the gender-migration- development nexus, the aim of this thesis was to examine the Filipino-American care chain. Through a feminist and intersectional perspective, this study showed how the creation of Filipino women as “natural caregivers” reproduce stereotypical images of female migrants as “others”. This paper was based on material gathering from a mixed method, and also demonstrated how care is organised around remittances and transnational parenting. Finally, this thesis concluded that the unequal distribution of care work is dependent on young women migrant workers taking on care and household responsibilities.