“Why should I not take an apple or a fruit if I wash their underwear?” Food, Social Classification and Paid Domestic Work in Mexico

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of food relations between female employers and nonindigenous domestic workers in the city of Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. The paper argues that food and eating are still powerful racial and class markers among people in Mexico regardless of their ethnic adscription. The paper describes the history of food relations in Mexico and illustrates the parallels between ideas of culinary and human mestizaje as imagined founders of Mexico's national identity. In doing so, it identifies the complexities of addressing racism among a group of women workers that, in theory, are imagined as mixed while, in practice, are part of an occupation that has been and is still heavily racialised.Recent literature on paid domestic work has mainly focused on globalisation, female immigration and discrimination based on gender, race, class and citizenship (

How is social inequality maintained in the Global South? Critiquing the concept of dirty work

“…In the Middle East, Benjamin et al (2010) argue that domestic workers must conform to the community’s derogatory gaze. Saldana-Tejeda (2012) observes how domestic worker abuse in Mexico is linked to historical concerns around purity and contamination. In Anderson’s (2000) classical text on domestic work across the Global North, she argues that such work is most often undertaken by members of racialized groups.…”

“…Everyday practices of untouchability, such as keeping separate utensils for workers and not allowing access to employer toilets and other spaces are daily markers of social hierarchies (Pinho, 2015; Ray and Qayum, 2009; Sharma, 2016; Zulfiqar and Prasad, 2021). Food distinction, argues Saldana-Tejeda (2012), is an especially powerful mechanism by which to mark gender, class, and racial differences between workers doing dirty work and the employers (also see Rauf and Prasad, 2020).…”

“…The extensive literature on domestic work illustrates how the worker's body is dismissed as rough, disposable, polluted, and, therefore, less than human (Anderson, 2000;Barbosa, 2007;Pinho, 2015;Sharma, 2016). Systematic cultural representations separate workers-both physically and symbolically-from the families that hire them, painting them with a permanent foreignness to ensure as much of a hands-off exchange as possible within the intimacy of the employer's home (Anderson, 2000;Chang, 2000;Saldana-Tejeda, 2012). Everyday practices of untouchability, such as keeping separate utensils for workers and not allowing access to employer toilets and other spaces are daily markers of social hierarchies (Pinho, 2015;Ray and Qayum, 2009;Sharma, 2016;Zulfiqar and Prasad, 2021).…”

En sus propias palabras: las experiencias sociolaborales de trabajadoras del hogar y del cuidado de Bolivia, Perú y Uruguay

“…Específicamente en dicho sector del mercado laboral, el siglo XXI trajo nuevos reconocimientos normativos al ser comprendidas las trabajadoras del hogar dentro de la clase trabajadora (PNUD, 2017). Pese a ello, diversos autores (Blofield, 2012;Lastra, 2019;ONU Mujeres et al, 2020) hacen hincapié en las condiciones socioeconómicas aún pobres de las trabajadoras del hogar, incluyendo la persistencia de la discriminación en las relaciones entre ellas y sus empleadores (Brites, 2014;Canevaro, 2018;Saldaña-Tejeda, 2012;Lautier, 2003).…”

“…Según diversos autores, la afectividad (Canevaro, 2018), la ambigüedad (Espinosa, 2021;Gorban, 2012Gorban, , 2013Saldaña-Tejeda, 2012), la complicidad y el antagonismo (Brites, 2014) son elementos presentes en las relaciones que se establecen entre TdHyC y empleadores. Todos estos aspectos no solo contribuyen a organizar las condiciones laborales del empleo doméstico sino también insuflan las representaciones sociales sobre el orden social más amplio, contribuyendo a su reproducción.…”