Rosie Cox

A provocative, starling and fascinating journey into the murkey world of dirt

The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life

Dirt

There are now more servants in Britain than in Victorian times. This explosion in paid domestic employment is part of a global trend. Women from countries such as the Philippines take on domestic jobs in order to support families at home, whilst students from Eastern Europe, the EU and Brazil work as au pairs in order to study English and improve their employment prospects. Cox shows how policies introduced and encouraged by governments and global financial organizations have made domestic employment cheaper, easier and more necessary, and she shows how these policies have intensified inequalities that make life worse for millions of people. Inequalities of income have increased dramatically, work practices have become less rather than more family friendly, changes in taxation and benefits have favored the most wealthy and punished the worst off, and childcare provision still expects women to stay at home and look after the children.—back cover.

Domestic Employment in a Global Economy

The Servant Problem

Nicky Busch

Au pairs are relied upon by tens of thousands of UK families to do everything from childcare and housework to elder care, pet feeding and waiting at dinner parties. Traditionally thought of as privileged and well-educated young women having fun on a 'gap year' abroad, au pairs have been excluded from many of the recent discussions on migrant domestic labour. However, since 2008 au pairing has been effectively unregulated in the UK and the result is that au pairs now constitute one of the poorest paid and least protected groups of workers. Through an examination of lived experiences, As an Equal? draws on detailed research to examine au pairs and the families who host them in contemporary Britain, revealing au pairing to have become increasingly indistinguishable from other forms of domestic labour. Crucially, hosting an au pair is shown to form part of families' attempts to provide good (enough) childcare in the context of extended working hours and poor public childcare provision. This increased reliance of families on an exploited workforce is shown to form part of the wider political climate of economic austerity, and raises profound questions about the position of women within the neoliberal economy.

Au Pairing in the 21st Century

As an Equal?

Victor Buchli

Matt Cook

Andrew Gorman-Murray

Queering the Interior problematizes the familiar space of 'home'. It deploys a queer lens to view domestic interiors and conventions and uncovers some of the complexities of homemaking for queer people. Each of the book's six sections focuses on a different room or space inside the home. The journey starts with entryways, and continues through kitchens, living spaces, bedrooms, bathrooms, and finally, closets and studies. In each case up to three specialists bring their disciplinary expertise and queer perspectives to bear. The result is a fascinating collection of essays by scholars from literary studies, geography, sociology, anthropology, history and art history. The contributors use historical and sociological case studies; spatial, art and literary analyses; interviews; and experimental visual approaches to deliver fresh, detailed and grounded perspectives on the home and its queer dimensions. A highly creative approach to the analysis of domestic spaces, Queering the Interior makes an important contribution to the fields of gender studies, social and cultural history, cultural studies, design, architecture, anthropology, sociology, and cultural geography.

Rosie Cox

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