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The project “DomEQUAL: A Global Approach to Paid Domestic Work and Global Inequalities” sees paid domestic work as an important object of analysis for scholars who want to understand the impact of globalisation on the construction of social inequality across countries. In fact, the multidimensional transformations induced by globalisation, with increased global-local and transnational interactions, an intensification of international migration, reorganisations of social classes, the urbanisation of rural and indigenous populations, and changes in gender norms, lifestyles, household organisation and welfare regimes, have had a massive impact on the situation of domestic workers across countries.

In this perspective, the DomEQUAL project has a three-fold aim:

  1. to provide new theoretical insights on transformations in the social position of paid domestic workers, focusing on the social, economic and legal ‘fields’;
  2.  to contribute beyond the state of the art to feminist scholarship on the “intersectional” character of social inequalities;
  3. to explore the role of different social actors in the “strategic field of actions” of labour rights for domestic workers.

This will be done through a comparison between the transformations in the situations of PDWs in recent decades (1950s-now) in the following countries: SpainItaly and Germany in Europe; ColombiaEcuador and Brazil in South America; and IndiaPhilippines and Taiwan in Asia. These nine countries are interesting cases for comparison because of their different positioning within the process of globalisation, the specificities of their socio-cultural contexts, and because they have all experienced significant mobilisations for domestic workers’ rights.

The project will be carried out by the Principal Investigator and the Core Team (three post-doctoral researchers and one research assistant for 3 years) based at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice (Italy), with the support of nine country-experts (for 1 year) who will provide statistical data and interview material from the countries under study. It is also supported by leading experts in this field of study who compose the project’s Advisory Board.

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