CANCELLED: Keynote Lecture: Rhacel Parreñas

Rhacel Parreñas, Professor of American Civilization and Sociology at Brown University, will be visiting the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance to give a special keynote lecture.

Cultures of Maternalism: the Legal Construction of Migrant Domestic Workers as 'One of the Family' - a comparative perspective

This lecture compares the citizenship of migrant domestic workers in the countries of Denmark, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. It specifically examines the politics of the following programmes: the au pair programme in Denmark, the kafala programme in the United Arab Emirates, and the Labor Certification Program in the United States. In varying degrees, families in these three countries depend on the labour of migrant domestic workers to do care giving work, leading to the implementation of state programmes that facilitate the legal incorporation of these workers. While domestic work is constructed as a basis of entry for labour migration, it at the same time remains an occupation unprotected by labour laws in each of these three states. Consequently, foreign domestic workers are legally constructed as “one of the family” rather than conceived of as a worker. This is the case in liberal democratic states, social democratic states, and autocratic states. The similar policies on foreign domestic workers across various welfare regimes suggest that their experiences could be an instructive springboard to the continued culture of maternalism around the globe.