Domestic Work-Affective Labour: On Heteronormativity and the Coloniality of Labour within the Context of EU Migration Policies

Abstract

The increasing inclusion of women into the labour market, the aging of the population, and the austerity measures affecting the public care system in the European Union have propelled the demand for domestic and care workers in the last decades. A large number of private households are choosing to employ women to provide these services. Often, those employed are migrant women who, in some cases, reside in Europe without legal resident status. As undocumented migrants, these women lack legal protection as workers. This paper will focus on this lack of protection by studying the case of Latin American undocumented female migrants employed as domestic workers in private households in Western Europe. The focus of the paper will be the affective relationship between domestic workers and their employers. Understanding this relationship within the context of the feminization of labour, the heteronormative arrangement underlying the personal interactions in private households and the differential hierarchies established through EU migration policies, this article proposes as an analytical framework the exploration the intersections between heteronormativity and Quijano’s coloniality of power. The article engages with the affective dimension of domestic work and proposes domestic work as affective labour. It concludes with some thoughts on the ethico-political dimension of affects.