Reproducing the national family: kinship claims, development discourse and migrant caregivers in Palestine/Israel

Abstract

This article probes the politics of the migrant caregiver/citizen-employer relationship in Palestine/Israel as it unfolds within the Jewish-Israeli home. Based on interviews with migrants from the Philippines, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka and their Jewish-Israeli employers, I examine how Israel’s ethno-racially hierarchical citizenship regime and the transnational gendering and racialisation of carework manifest in this relationship. I begin by situating migrant women working as caregivers within the legal and political context of Palestine/Israel, delineating how gendered constructions of the Jewish-Israeli woman uphold the borders of the nation and paint non-Jewish migrant women as reproductively threatening. I then analyse two common tropes among citizen-employers in describing migrant caregivers. The first, what I term the ‘kinship trope’, characterizes them as ‘one of the family’, obscuring the ethno-racial basis of the state. I show how this trope contrasts sharply with Zionist settler colonial rhetoric portraying Jewish-Israelis as ‘one big family’. The second trope represents migrant women as individual agents of economic development and Israel as a market-driven, neoliberal society that is equally a state for all its citizens. By depicting Israel as a ‘modern’, ‘progressive’ state that is an exemplar of gender equality, this trope again masks the ethno-racial basis of citizenship, as well as gender disparities. Finally, I argue for a feminist approach to migrant carework that accounts for the ways neoliberal labour formations are mediated by gendered racisms specific to a particular state’s racial nation-building project.

The Impact of Micro and Macro Level Factors on the Working and Living Conditions of Migrant Care Workers in Italy and Israel—A Scoping Review

“…Out of the 33 included articles, 18 focused on Italy [ 29 , 37 , 38 , 44 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ], 14 focused on Israel [ 23 , 39 , 45 , 48 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 ], and one article focused on both Italy and Israel [ 34 ].…”

“…Five studies were in the field of Health [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 67 , 68 ], four Ageing/Gerontology [ 64 , 66 , 68 , 71 ], and one each were from Social Policy [ 72 ], Social problems [ 23 ], Interpersonal Violence [ 39 ], Documentation [ 67 ], Information, Communication and Society [ 69 ], and Feminist theory [ 45 ].…”

“…Eight studies were qualitative [ 23 , 45 , 63 , 65 , 67 , 69 , 71 , 72 ], five were quantitative [ 39 , 48 , 64 , 66 , 70 ] and two were mixed-method qualitative and quantitative studies [ 68 , 71 ].…”

“…Three studies were from 2015 [ 63 , 64 , 65 ], three were from 2016 [ 23 , 39 , 66 ], one was from 2018 [ 48 ], six were from 2019 [ 45 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 ], and one study was from 2020 [ 72 ].…”

“…Second, both have familial care regimes, where the majority of care for older adults has traditionally been provided within the family network [ 31 , 37 ]. Third, they share similarities in gender regimes, with women bearing most of the care burden [ 44 , 45 ]. Fourth, both countries are experiencing rapid population ageing, which is likely to result in a high level of demand for home-based care in the coming years [ 16 ].…”