Doctoral Dissertation Research: New Urban Geographies of Domestic Work

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation improvement project will examine the shifting spatio-temporal organization of paid domestic work in the 21st century. Today, in contrast to past live-in arrangements, domestic work is much more likely to be performed by day workers who often live far away from their employers. This shift in employment arrangement represents a significant spatio-temporal reorganization of the sector as workers' daily commutes might now vary, along with their daily and weekly working hours, the number of employers for whom they work, and time spent interacting with each of them. This project will consider the significance of this reorganization by advancing theories in urban geography and the geographies of work, as well as contributing to renewed social science research interest in the micro and macro patterns of mobility. This project focuses on the domestic employment relationship, but the findings will contribute to the ongoing reformulation of concepts to better understand labor, work, and employment in the 21st century that is increasingly service-oriented, insecure, and spatially fragmented. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career. This project pays close attention to the increasing spatial and temporal fragmentation of paid domestic work and its significance for workers, employers, and wider society. The project is centered on the following questions: (1) How has the spatio-temporal reorganization of paid domestic work impacted the daily lives of domestic workers and employers, particularly the household organization and management strategies of each? (2) What are the implications of these spatio-temporal changes for: a) the domestic employment relationship, and b) domestic worker organizing efforts for better working conditions? (3) How might longstanding social relations associated with the employer-employee relationship and the place of paid domestic work in society be changing in response to the reorganization of the sector? These research questions will be answered through a mixed methods approach including content analysis of domestic employment job postings and news media sources, descriptive data analysis of government data, participant observation of union activities, key informant interviews with union leaders, and in-depth interviews with domestic workers and employers. Interviews with workers will include the collection of time-diaries to develop time-space paths as a way of understanding the lived experience of navigating this increasingly fragmented work. The study will investigate these questions in Brazil but will be translatable to other contexts where domestic work is also a significant part of the economy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.