Migration and Domestic Work ― A European Perspective on a Global Theme

Domestic work has become highly relevant on a local and global scale. Until a decade ago, domestic workers were rare in European households; today they can be found working for middle-class families and single people, for double or single parents as well as for the elderly. Performing the three C's a€“ cleaning, caring and cooking a€“ domestic workers offer their woman power on a global market which Europe has become part of. This global market is now considered the largest labour market for women world wide and it has triggered the feminization of migration. This volume brings together contributions by European and US based researchers to look at the connection between migration and domestic work on an empirical and theoretical level. The contributors elaborate on the phenomenon of 'domestic work' in late modern societies by discussing different methodological and theoretical approaches in an interdisciplinary setting. The volume also looks at the gendered aspects of domestic work; it asks why the re-introduction of domestic workers in European households has become so popular and will argue that this phenomenon is challenging gender theories. This is a timely book and will be of interest to academics and students in the fields of migration, gender and European studies.

Helma Lutz is a Professor of Women's and Gender Studies. She is at the J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt/M, Department of Social Science, Germany. Her research interests are gender, migration, ethnicity, nationalism, racism and citizenship. She has a long record of research about the intersection of gender and ethnicity in European societies and has widely published on these issues in three languages (Dutch, German, English). Her most recent book in German is: Vom Weltmarkt in den Privathaushalt. Die 'Neuen DienstmA?dchen' im Zeitalter der Globalisierung. Opladen: Barbara Budrich 2007. She is the editor of the special issue of the European Journal of Women's Studies (14)3, 2007: Domestic Work. Her main publications in English are: The New Migration in Europe. Social Constructions and Social Realities (co-editor with Khalid Koser, London: MacMillan, 1998); Crossfires. Nationalism, Racism and Gender in Europe (co-editor with Ann Phoenix and Nira Yuval-Davis, London: Pluto Press,1995).