‘Good families’ and the shadows of servitude: au pair gossip
and norms of au pair employment

k 2014

‘Good families’ and the shadows of servitude: au pair gossip and norms of au pair employment

SEKERÁKOVÁ BÚRIKOVÁ, Zuzana

Základní údaje

Originální název

‘Good families’ and the shadows of servitude: au pair gossip and norms of au pair employment

Autoři

SEKERÁKOVÁ BÚRIKOVÁ, Zuzana (703 Slovensko, garant, domácí)

Vydání

The 27th Conference of the Nordic Sociological Association Exploring Blind Spots, 2014

Další údaje

Jazyk

angličtina

Typ výsledku

Prezentace na konferencích

Obor

Archeologie, antropologie, etnologie

Stát vydavatele

Česká republika

Utajení

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

Kód RIV

RIV/00216224:14230/14:00073956

Organizační jednotka

Fakulta sociálních studií

Klíčová slova česky

Au pair; migrace; placená péče

Klíčová slova anglicky

Au pair; migration; paid care

Příznaky

Mezinárodní význam

Změněno: 15. 10. 2014 10:25, Mgr. Zuzana Sekeráková Búriková, Ph.D.

Anotace

V originále

Though the conditions of au pairs’ employment are vaguely defined by legislation, au pairs usually are not familiar with its details. Furthermore, the actual working and living conditions of au pairs’ are controlled neither by immigration policy, nor by commercial agencies mediating contacts between the au pairs and host families. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork amongst Slovak au pairs in London in 2004/2005, this presentation will focus on how au pairs deal with this lack of definitions and control under the conditions of limited power. I will argue that their important concern is fairness of their treatment by host families: au pairs try to find out what kinds of working and living conditions are fair and whether they are staying with (what they call) ‘a good family‘. When au pairs judge their treatment by host families, they do not rely on any formal authority (e.g. agencies), or abstract model (e.g. legal rules). Instead, when establishing what rules of au pair employment are (or should be), they rely on their social networks and compare their experience with experiences of other individual au pairs. After illustrating what au pairs consider as ‘a good family’ I will pay attention to the idea of ‘servitude’, as au pairs often contrasted servitude with the ‘proper’ treatment of au pairs and to the practice of ‘good families’, arguing that servitude is a shadow concept (Jiménez and Willerslev, 2007) of au pairing.

Návaznosti

GP13-11062P, projekt VaV

Název: Placená péče o děti a domácnost v Česku a na Slovensku

Investor: Grantová agentura ČR, Placená péče o děti a domácnost v Česku a na Slovensku

Citovat

SEKERÁKOVÁ BÚRIKOVÁ, Zuzana. ‘Good families’ and the shadows of servitude: au pair gossip and norms of au pair employment. In The 27th Conference of the Nordic Sociological Association Exploring Blind Spots. 2014.

@proceedings{1202715,
   author = {Sekeráková Búriková, Zuzana},
   booktitle = {The 27th Conference of the Nordic Sociological Association Exploring Blind Spots},
   keywords = {Au pair; migration; paid care},
   language = {eng},
   title = {‘Good families’ and the shadows of servitude: au pair gossip and norms of au pair employment},
   year = {2014}
}

TY  - CONF
ID  - 1202715
AU  - Sekeráková Búriková, Zuzana
PY  - 2014
TI  - ‘Good families’ and the shadows of servitude: au pair gossip and norms of au pair employment
KW  - Au pair
KW  - migration
KW  - paid care
N2  - Though the conditions of au pairs’ employment are vaguely defined by legislation, au pairs usually are not familiar with its details. Furthermore, the actual working and living conditions of au pairs’ are controlled neither by immigration policy, nor by commercial agencies mediating contacts between the au pairs and host families. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork amongst Slovak au pairs in London in 2004/2005, this presentation will focus on how au pairs deal with this lack of definitions and control under the conditions of limited power. I will argue that their important concern is fairness of their treatment by host families: au pairs try to find out what kinds of working and living conditions are fair and whether they are staying with (what they call) ‘a good family‘. When au pairs judge their treatment by host families, they do not rely on any formal authority (e.g. agencies), or abstract model (e.g. legal rules). Instead, when establishing what rules of au pair employment are (or should be), they rely on their social networks and compare their experience with experiences of other individual au pairs. After illustrating what au pairs consider as ‘a good family’ I will pay attention to the idea of ‘servitude’, as au pairs often contrasted servitude with the ‘proper’ treatment of au pairs and to the practice of ‘good families’, arguing that servitude is a shadow concept (Jiménez and Willerslev, 2007) of au pairing.
ER  -

SEKERÁKOVÁ BÚRIKOVÁ, Zuzana. ‘Good families’ and the shadows of servitude: au pair gossip and norms of au pair employment. In \textit{The 27th Conference of the Nordic Sociological Association Exploring Blind Spots}. 2014.

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