Constructions of Care in Modern Greece: Gendered Relationships between Filipina Domestic Workers and Greek Employers

Abstract

The present article focuses on the culturally and contextually defined notion of ‘care’ with reference to Filipina live-in domestic workers in contemporary Greece. This is studied through careful examination of: the kinship discourses dominant in the Greek household and in domestic labor relationships; the kinship discourses present in the Philippines; and the religious Filipino discourse in the immigrant context of Greece. In all of these contexts an idiom of ‘care’ is present as a means of the construction of hierarchal relationships. However, for Filipina domestic workers in their encounter with Greek employers, ‘care’ becomes a dynamic form of agency, transforming dominant theorizations that associate care with servitude.