MESA Banner
Labor(ing) Spaces: Elucidating care in Lebanon
Abstract
Over 250,000 migrant domestic workers currently work in Lebanon. In 2015 alone, the Ministry of Labor granted 60,814 new work permits to foreign laborers, the majority of whom applied as female domestic workers (al-khidamy al-menzaliya) from Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, though this number is commonly identified as inaccurate, since many domestic workers do not register for work permits, or fail to renew work permits for a number of reasons. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), female MDWs in Lebanon suffer some of the highest rates of abuse worldwide, and are dying at a rate of more than one per week. These statistics have mobilized international watch groups and Lebanese non-governmental organizations (NGO) on two main points, first, the much-needed reform of the kafala system, the state-sanctioned sponsorship system for migrant workers that, "systematically produces [emphasis added] a new population of readily exploitable worker[s]." Second, the treatment of MDWs at the hands of their employers, with special attention paid to the gendered dimensions of such violence in the home. There is still a dearth of analysis, however, on the actual labor of MDWs in Lebanon, and the practices that sustain their positioning within the labor economy. Using ethnographic data gathered in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 2017, and independently in early 2018, this paper will center MDW labor in Lebanon as the starting point of an analysis that investigates how certain tasks under the umbrella of "care work" are implicated through gendered and racialized logics. This research will examine some of the following questions, including: what types of labor are in highest demand? Is this labor demand made across all demographics of MDWs, or are tasks allocated according to a raced and/or gendered logic? How is labor reconfigured in homes with more than one MDW? Are certain tasks and/or job-types more desirable for MDWs?
Discipline
Sociology
Geographic Area
Lebanon
Sub Area
Gender/Women's Studies