Intersectionality and the International Dimensions of Social Reproduction

• In Event: Intersectionality and International Relations

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the ways that gender regimes governing domestic workers sit at the nexus of domestic and international politics. As intersectional marginalized workers, domestic workers often fail to benefit from more general policy reforms aimed at improving conditions for women workers or for low-income workers in the informal sector. Domestic workers have organized alongside their feminist and labor movement allies to demand policy reforms to recognize their work and extend labor protections to workers. In so doing, they have invoked the support of international conventions on domestic work, conventions that help workers both in bringing pressure on their own governments and in representing legal standing and recognition for a group whose work is too often invisible, overlooked and undervalued. Our analysis shows that domestic and international protest and institutions combine to prompt better policies for domestic workers. We conclude by considering the political potential of a strategy involving both domestic protest and an appeal to international institutions for other intersectional marginalized groups.

Authors

• S. Laurel Weldon, Simon Fraser University

• srijani datta, Simon Fraser University

• Amber N Lusvardi, Purdue University

• Kaitlin Kelly-Thompson, Tufts University

• Summer Forester, Carleton College