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Domestic Service and the Formation of European Identity

Understanding the Globalization of Domestic Work, 16th-21st Centuries

by Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux (Volume editor)
©2005 Edited Collection XVI, 590 Pages

Summary

Before the Servant Project began its activities, on the initiative of the editor of this book, the long term history of domestic service was still in its beginning stage. This volume is the first wide-ranging attempt to determine the role of domestic workers both in past and present times. Domestic service was of major importance in the multi-secular process of urbanization and socio-economic development of European societies. Today, domestic workers (mainly women) represent an important component of international labour migrations to Western countries. Instead of disappearing, as expected for a long time, paid domestic work is currently experiencing a kind of «resurgence».
The contributions assembled in this volume analyze the situation of domestic workers, and contribute to improve knowledge concerning their individual characteristics (gender, ethnic group, religion), origin, motivation and cultural identity, relationship with their own families and those of the employers. Further topics are connections with the home country and place of destination, legal status, rights and duties, in order to understand the current globalization of domestic work.

Details

Pages
XVI, 590
Publication Year
2005
ISBN (Softcover)
9783039105892
Language
English
Keywords
Europa Hausgehilfin Geschichte Life Course the Maid Servant Adaptability Domestic Service Social Renewal the Master Gruppenidentität Evolution of Law Internationale Migration
Published
Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2005. XVI, 590 pp., 32 ill.

Biographical notes

Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux (Volume editor)

The Editor: Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux is Maître de Conférences at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales (EHESS), Centre de Recherches Historiques/CNRS, Paris (France), where she teaches History of the Family. She was Researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, associate Professor at the University of Montréal, Canada, and currently associate Professor at the University of Salta, Argentina. As a social historian and historical demographer, she has edited several books and published numerous essays on the history of the family, Malthusianism, female migration, gender studies and social change in Europe, and comparative family transmission systems in Eurasia.

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Title: Domestic Service and the Formation of European Identity