Over the past few weeks starting my research, I have begun to develop a solid list of sources to aid me in my research. At this point, I am mostly relying on academic articles and portions from books. Because there is a lack of research surrounding domestic workers, I have found that the best research comes from compiling small amounts of theories and information from multiple sources.
The two authors I have gotten the most information from are Laura Oso Casas and Encarnación Gutiérrez-Rodríguez. Casas’s article, “Dominican Women, Heads of Household in Spain” has provided me with a large amount of specific information surrounding dominican female immigrants in Spain, information which I can apply most obviously towards the Dominican women’s experiences in SEDOAC, but that also applies towards the other immigrant women of color within SEDOAC. I have also been reading two of Gutiérrez-Rodríguez’s articles, “The Precarity of Feminisation: On Domestic Work, Heteronormativity and the Coloniality of Labour” and “The ‘Hidden Side’ of the New Economy: On Transnational Migration, Domestic Work, and Unprecedented Intimacy.” Gutiérrez-Rodríguez’s articles are helpful because they show domestic work in Europe through an intersectional feminist lens. Her articles do not focus solely on Spain, but they are very helpful with the theories and social history surrounding domestic work in Europe in general, and I can bolster her more general views with statistics, such as immigration rates by gender and country into Spain.
For the first article, “The Precarity of Feminisation: On Domestic Work, Heteronormativity and the Coloniality of Labour,” Gutiérrez-Rodriguez uses research conducted in Spain, the UK, Germany, and Austria. Guitiérrez-Rodríguez focuses on the European Union (EU)’s regulation of non-EU workers, as well as the implementation of EU laws in regards to female migrants. She hypothesizes that women face more problems when moving to the EU, as many are considered unskilled. She also calls attention to issues such as degrees from Latin American not being accepted in Spain, and the division of unskilled and skilled workers within the EU being mostly focused on class and racial divisions. Lastly, Gutiérrez-Rodríguez brings attention to the social and cultural expectations that inform the way the domestic work sector works within the EU. In the second article “The ‘Hidden Side’ of the New Economy: On Transnational Migration, Domestic Work, and Unprecedented Intimacy,” Gutiérrez-Rodríguez’s draws attention to intersectional femininity within women’s labor, especially concerning women of color and queer women. This article also discusses the intersection between colonial power and mindsets with feminism and domestic work, especially domestic work within private households in the European Union. This article has been particularly helpful in conversation with other articles, because of its focus on intersectionality, whereas many other articles are solely focused on one aspect of domestic workers’ oppression, such as race or gender.
My goal for these articles is for them to work in conversation with other readings, but also with interviews and research through SEDOAC. I hope that these articles will provide academic theories that will help me bolster my experiences with SEDOAC, and bolster my understanding of the issues domestic workers in Spain face. I am also interested to see if my experiences with the women fit with the theories presented by the articles, or if there are discrepancies between the academic theory and my real world experiences.
At this point, my biggest concern with my research is that I am researching to confirm what I already believe. I already believe that the issues surrounding race and gender impact the oppressions domestic workers in Spain face, so I just need to be sure to not research solely to bolster what I already believe. I believe that if I use a wide range of articles, as well as statistics and interviews, my research will be sufficiently supported so that if I do end up confirming my suspicions, it will still work. I believe my next steps are to read more articles and begin tracking my experiences with the women of SEDOAC, so that I can have a more interdisciplinary component to my research, and so that I can ensure that I am not confirming my own biases.
Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, Encarnación. “The Precarity of Feminisation: On Domestic Work,
Heteronormativity and the Coloniality of Labour.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, vol. 27, no. 2, 2014, pp. 191–202., www.jstor.org/stable/24713312.
Rodríguez, Encarnación Gutiérrez. “The ‘Hidden Side’ of the New Economy: On Transnational
Migration, Domestic Work, and Unprecedented Intimacy.” Frontiers: A Journal of
Women Studies, vol. 28, no. 3, 2007, pp. 60–83. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40071909.
This is already a start in responding to my previous comment! I think at this point interviewing and participant observation might be a good place to focus, using the unique opportunity you have (i.e. access to the women embodying these experiences) to develop your own theory from your own empirical research. Will it match up with what you already think? Perhaps. But I often find that that if you listen to the person you are researching and offer space for them to theorize themselves, you collect much richer evidence. For example, rather than asking a direct question (“How does being Dominican shape your experience in Spain?”), you might ask (“Do you think being Dominican shapes your experience in Spain and in what ways?”) Also, do you have a demographic breakdown of the women involved in SEDOAC? Is that even possible? It might be interesting to consider country of origin, age, sexuality (if that’s available), parenthood, single/partnered/married in this analysis.