During the Spring semester, we read AbdouMalique Simone’s article People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in Johannesburg. Simone, in his article tries to get his readers to think of infrastructure not only in physical terms, but in social terms as well. His ethnography of inner-city Johannesburg suggested to him that due to the unpredictability and provisionality of the relationships and environment that the residents faced, a social infrastructure of collaboration and a “specific economy of perception” emerged. People learn how to guide their actions and create relationships by reading the situation and the people at that precise moment and connecting it with the larger history of place. The nature of domestic work can in some ways exemplify Simone’s concept of people as infrastructure. The informality of the sector signifies that a very intrinsic web – or infrastructure- of people is built. Although domestic work agencies and internet platforms do exist, it appears that most domestic workers largely rely on their informal social network to meet potential employers and get new jobs. At the beginning of the summer, I was added to SEDOAC’s whatsapp group (it has as of now 91 participants). The group chat is used to send motivational messages, and to share the information of the workshops that are to be held by the collective. However, the chat is also used to share job openings or to ask about job possibilities. If somebody knows about a prospective employer who is looking for a domestic worker, then they share all the information in there. In the same way, if somebody is looking for a job, they post a message in the chat. This reminded me of when I interviewed a Colombian domestic worker in New York and she told me that as soon as a new Latina arrived to New York, they had to look for a job for her so she could start paying her bills. The same solidarity is shown in SEDOAC’s group chat. Irina from SEDOAC (name-changed) also told me about the many times that she woke up extremely early to go to the church so they could help her find a job. Irina said that there are so many people waiting in line you sometimes have to come back several days in a row. This attests to the pivotal importance that informal social networks have in regulating this sector. In a similar manner, most employers prefer to hire a domestic worker that were referred to them by somebody they trust. In the interviews that I conducted this summer, I found that not one employer had hired their current domestic worker through an agency. They had relied on their neighbors, family, or previous domestic workers, to find a new domestic worker. This ‘infrastructure’, or social structure of collaboration, has created relationships of interdependency that may arise out of solidarity but also self-interest, and can sometimes be very fleeting. For instance, the domestic worker I interviewed told me that every time she runs into another domestic worker, even if she has never seen this stranger before, she asks them how much they are charging per hour. These fleeting encounters help to inform her about how much she’s supposed to be gaining and can ultimately serve as catalysts for asking for a raise or leaving an underpaying job. Hondagneu-Sotelo in her study of domestic work in Los Angeles found through in-depth interviews to employers, that they too inform themselves about how much they ‘should’ be paying their employees by talking to neighbors or friends who also hire domestic workers. Thus for this sector to run, an infrastructure of human relations has to be developed.
Ms.Elías and SEDOAC constantly emphasize that SEDOAC would not be able to achieve all they have achieved if it was not for the network and alliances that they have built. In fact, ‘weaving networks’ (tejer redes in spanish) is one of the foundational pillars of SEDOAC’s work. Due to limited funds and difficult working schedules, SEDOAC did not have an office until this summer when they finally opened the Center for Empowerment. So, it rather depended on other organizations or public spaces to organize their meetings. These meetings/workshops/seminars serve as a zone and time of catharsis for women facing similar discriminations at work and in the larger community of Madrid. SEDOAC has formed alliances with other grassroots organizations that work towards mutual empowerment. Their workshops prepare them for their daily battles in their employment and unite their efforts and experiences to fight for legal reform. For all these reasons, I decided to create a digital map of SEDOAC’s social network. It includes some alliances, co-created projects, political lobbying, and more actions that SEDOAC has developed since 2008.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette. Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows Affluence. University of California Press, 2001.
Could you send me the map via a separate link? I’m having a little trouble accessing it through the embed. That aside, I appreciate your interpretation of the experience of SEDOAC’s members through Simone’s argument for people as infrastructure. I actually think you’re blending two different observations here. One is that domestic workers’ simultaneously visible and invisible labor allows for other economic infrastructures to remain stable. This is, of course, stating the obvious — if someone else is taking care of your kid at an extremely low wage, you have the time to work outside the home (i.e. contribute to the economy in more capital-unlocking ways). Have you heard of the film A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYJcfhxMkrQ)? It’s kind of a tongue-in-cheek, fictional film about what would happen if all of the Mexican laborers in LA suddenly disappeared. I wonder if you think this might be a way to think immigrants and migrants in Spain too? The other observation I think you’re making very well is a little separate from what Simone is arguing, which is that a social network (made literal with WhatsApp!) exists to between domestic workers and other (im)migrant laborers in Spain that allows them to share resources, knowledge, opportunity, and political education. They exist in an alternative, non-currency-based economy in which information and support are the assets being exchanged. I’m curious whether you think this network will be strengthened or weakened by the establishment of the new center? Will people begin to rely on the center to be the distribution hub of these resources, or do you think they will continue to share in the way they always have?