Violent Domesticity: The Symbolic, Linguistic, and Physical Violence of South African Domestic Workers

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: Adult Literacy and Adult Education Posters

Abstract

Drawing from the narratives of 25 South African domestic workers, most of whom who live with their employers in Johannesburg and many of whom are taking English language classes, within this paper I focus specifically on the narratives of several women who have experienced multifaceted inflictions of violence. I connect these narratives to Bourdieu’s (1991) conceptions of symbolic power/violence as well as Butler’s (1997) notions of linguistic vulnerability to further understand the ways in linguistic and symbolic violence is being (re)inflicted on these women. However, what I also assert is that within the oppressive linguistic hierarchy in which these women live, there are spaces for the autonomy, freedom, and the reappropriation of the term of “domestic work.”

Author

• Anna Kaiper, The Pennsylvania State University