‘Just Surviving’: domestic work as a form of structural violence in Sistren Theatre Collective's Domestick

Abstract

This article discusses Sistren Theatre Collective's play Domestick, performed at the Barn Theatre, Kingston, Jamaica in 1981 for local audiences and then in Canada for groups of domestic workers from the Caribbean, the Philippines, Europe and the UK. The play was also performed in Grenada and St Vincent when Sistren toured those islands in 1982. It is argued that Sistren's play is still relevant to contemporary debates on domestic work and the contemporary struggles of Jamaican domestic workers as it demonstrates that paid ‘housekeeping’ is a form of structural violence against women.