Domestic care workers – “new/global” maids? The metaphor of being a maidservant in two female domestic care worker’s stories

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, I try to understand what it means to be a domestic care worker by scrutinizing the maidrole associated with this work in the story of two women working in the transnational care economy. Both of them were pensioners when they took on this job: they go (went) to German and Austrian households for 4 or 6 week-long periods of time, and look(ed) after elderly people (single or living together with a family) in their homes. At a certain point of their story, these women referred to themselves as maids (domestic servants, maidservants) highlighting the subjectively perceived nature of the care work done in foreign households. My question is: what does this mean for them personally and how does the metaphor of being a maid work in their stories? What kind of relationships are revealed and wrapped or masked by using it? The first part of the study seeks structural parallels, that is, similarities between the position of the care worker in our times and the position of the former maidservant, which may be considered as a predecessor of this social and economic relation. My aim is to interpret the subjective meaning of ‘being a maidservant’ by analysing lived experiences and some hints of these two women’s lifestories and family histories. Both stories are built on a specific dynamic of taking and distancing of the role of maidservant, which shows that there is an inner ambiguity in this position, while this subjectively perceived and constructed parallel between the domestic care workers and former maidservant seems to be rather divergent. Key words: domestic worker, maid(servant), domestic care worker, care migration, transnational migration