K Schwiter
Biographic Data
| ID | 26501 |
|---|---|
| NAME | K Schwiter |
| GIVEN NAMES | K |
| FAMILY NAME | Schwiter |
| SIGNATURE | SCHWITER K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Zurich |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3035-657X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 163 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Underemployed but overworked: Reframing the paradox of underemployment through the lens of racial capitalism
This article reframes time-related underemployment through the lens of racial capitalism. This lens enables an understanding of underemployment as more than an effect of neoliberalisation, but as a consequence of othering processes intrinsic to capitalism that render specific communities exploitable. To illustrate our conceptual argument, we draw on in-person interviews with underemployed workers in the commercial cleaning sector in Switzerland. …
Hidden platform subsidies: The Role of Social Networks in Concealing (Too) Low Income on Care Work Platforms
As digital labour mediation platforms became prominent in the late 2010s, they were soon associated with deteriorating labour conditions, especially for ride hailing, delivery and crowd work. Yet studies are more ambivalent about their effects on care work, i.e. domestic work and home care for children and seniors. As care work was already informal and highly precarious before, digital platforms held the promise of (partially) formalizing it. Con…
This big shadow that we need to turn into light' - How labour intermediaries moralise commodified domestic care work
Domestic care workers have long been largely invisible in labour statistics and in public and policy debates. The emergence of digital labour intermediaries has exposed domestic care workers to a new, but problematic, individual visibility: to find jobs and customers, they must create digital public profiles with personal information. Accordingly, scholars emphasise that this individualised visibility poses risks to privacy and security of domest…
From Exceptionalism to Normalisation: How Narratives of Platform Companies Legitimise Precarious Work and Commodified Care
When platform companies first entered the scene, they claimed that their novel business models did not fit with existing regulations. This narrative of 'platform exceptionalism' has increasingly been discredited. This paper focuses on platform companies that mediate labour in the care sector and explores what legitimation strategies they use today. We build our argument on interviews with platform entrepreneurs in Hamburg, Vienna and Zurich and a…
Care crises and care fixes under Covid-19: The Example of Transnational Live-in Care Work
The COVID-19 pandemic brought care work to the forefront of attention. In many countries in the Global North, people became painfully aware that they had ‘outsourced’ a considerable share of this work to temporary migrants. Travel restrictions and lockdown measures disrupted transnational care arrangements and threatened the continuous provision of care. This article uses the example of transnationally organised live-in care in Switzerland to exp…
Male privilege revisited: How men in female‐dominated occupations notice and actively reframe privilege
Our article aims at refocusing the debate in privilege studies from tackling the invisibility to challenging justifications of gender privilege. Focusing on instances in which men acknowledge that they receive preferential treatment, this study sheds light on how privilege is perceived and talked about in interviews with men in female‐dominated occupations. In contrast to existing literature on the invisibility of privilege to the privileged, our…
Who shapes migration in open labour markets? Analysing migration infrastructures and brokers of circularly migrating home care workers in Switzerland
Fostered by the free movement of workers agreement in the Schengen area, a new market for live-in care work has emerged. Private for-profit care agencies recruit circular migrant women from Eastern Europe and place them in private households for senior care in Western Europe. This paper looks at the recruitment and placement practices of these agencies. Drawing on concepts on migration infrastructures and a politics of mobility, we argue that the…
Geographies of care work: The commodification of care, digital care futures and alternative caring visions
This article explores the growing interest in care within geography. Focusing on care as waged work, we trace current transformations through commodification and digitalisation. We discuss how the private household is turning into a precarious and feminised workplace for a growing number of workers, and we show how this development is promoted by the rise of labour agencies that facilitate the transnational recruitment of care workers. The litera…
Sending Granny to Chiang Mai: Debating Global Outsourcing of Care for the Elderly
This article ties in with existing discussions on global care chains, family separation and the devaluation of social-reproductive work. We explore the new trend of outsourcing care for the elderly to countries with lower wages. We base our analysis on the debate in the German press and supplement it with insights from ethnographic field observations in two care homes in Thailand. We identify a discourse of abandonment, which shows how outsourcin…
On the Construction of 24 Hours Care for the Elderly in the Swiss Media
This article analyses Swiss media coverage of 24 hours care between 2003 and 2013. Based on a discourse analysis we observe that the dominant media discourse speaks of a booming market that criticises agencies, victimises carers and idealises home care. In our discussion we analyse these results with a focus on the so-called blind spots of this media discourse. In particular, we challenge the claim of a boom in 24h care, shed light on the negativ…
Short-term circular migration and gendered negotiation of the right to the city: The case of migrant live-in care workers in Basel, Switzerland
At home with the boss: Migrant live‐in caregivers, social reproduction and constrained agency in the UK , Canada, Austria and Switzerland
In many countries of the global North, families increasingly rely on live‐in caregivers to look after their children and elderly. Although much care work remains unpaid and informal, several states have set up a variety of migration and labour regimes to guarantee a steady supply of workers to provide paid live‐in care in the home. This paper contributes to a broadening of the focus of labour geography beyond “productive” labour by factoring in t…
Neoliberal austerity and the marketisation of elderly care
Taking the recent debate on austerity as a starting point, this paper discusses contradictions in current processes of neoliberalisation using the marketisation of elderly care in Switzerland as an example. Just as in other countries, an austerity rationality in public spending and the neoliberal restructuring of public health services paved the way for the emergence of private suppliers of 24 hours home care. These new agencies hire migrant wome…
Stay-at-home fathers on the wane – In comes daddy day! Changing practices of fathering in German-speaking countries
Our commentary brings Boyer et al.’s (2017) argument of a ‘regendering of care’ through men’s growing engagement as caregivers into a dialogue with scholarship from German-speaking countries. This literature supports Boyer et al.’s claim of a connection between labour market opportunities and stay-at-home fatherhood. However, the research from our language context also suggests that fathers who are not gainfully employed do not necessarily become…
Ein sorgender Markt: Wie transnationale Vermittlungsagenturen für Seniorenbetreuung Im/mobilität, Ethnizität und Geschlecht in Wert setzen. How transnational care agencies legitimize their business by…
Processes of neoliberalization cannot be reduced to deregulation and cut-back of public services and their restructuring based on market principles. They include a new logic of how markets themselves operate. The former distinction between competition and morals − between economic values and cultural values increasingly dissolves. While public services are transformed according to market based incentives, companies are increasingly expected to of…
Neoliberal subjectivity – difference, free choice and individualised responsibility in the life plans of young adults in Switzerland
This paper aims at exploring neoliberalism where it has been internalised and normalised as "neoliberal subjectivity''. Based on a Foucauldian discourse perspective, it analyses narrative interviews with young Swiss adults focusing on their life plans and their aspirations for the future from a gender perspective. The analysis documents a pronounced discourse of individualisation. The subjectivity of the interviewees is characterised by ideas of …
Aversions to the commodification of care: How young Swiss adults plan to organise their future families
Looking at how young Swiss adults anticipate their future families, we find a pronounced discourse of disapproval of any form of commodified childcare. Interviewees in their mid-twenties insist that children should be cared for at home and by their parents. This paper discusses these empirical findings in the light of recent debates on the commodification of care. On the one hand, the idealised notion of the home as a safe haven for children migh…
Anticipating the transition to parenthood: The contribution of Foucaultian discourse analysis to understanding life-course patterns
Existing analyses of life-course transitions tend to take either an institutional or an agency perspective. The aim of this paper is to show how a discourse analytical approach might contribute to bridging the gap between the two perspectives and thereby broaden our understanding of life-course trajectories. To do this, it presents an empirical study that looks at how young Swiss adults anticipate the transition to parenthood. The findings show t…
Neoliberal austerity and the marketisation of elderly care
Taking the recent debate on austerity as a starting point, this paper discusses contradictions in current processes of neoliberalisation using the marketisation of elderly care in Switzerland as an example. Just as in other countries, an austerity rationality in public spending and the neoliberal restructuring of public health services paved the way for the emergence of private suppliers of 24 hours home care. These new agencies hire migrant wome…
At home with the boss: Migrant live‐in caregivers, social reproduction and constrained agency in the UK , Canada, Austria and Switzerland
In many countries of the global North, families increasingly rely on live‐in caregivers to look after their children and elderly. Although much care work remains unpaid and informal, several states have set up a variety of migration and labour regimes to guarantee a steady supply of workers to provide paid live‐in care in the home. This paper contributes to a broadening of the focus of labour geography beyond “productive” labour by factoring in t…
Geographies of care work: The commodification of care, digital care futures and alternative caring visions
This article explores the growing interest in care within geography. Focusing on care as waged work, we trace current transformations through commodification and digitalisation. We discuss how the private household is turning into a precarious and feminised workplace for a growing number of workers, and we show how this development is promoted by the rise of labour agencies that facilitate the transnational recruitment of care workers. The litera…
Sending Granny to Chiang Mai: Debating Global Outsourcing of Care for the Elderly
This article ties in with existing discussions on global care chains, family separation and the devaluation of social-reproductive work. We explore the new trend of outsourcing care for the elderly to countries with lower wages. We base our analysis on the debate in the German press and supplement it with insights from ethnographic field observations in two care homes in Thailand. We identify a discourse of abandonment, which shows how outsourcin…
Care crises and care fixes under Covid-19: The Example of Transnational Live-in Care Work
The COVID-19 pandemic brought care work to the forefront of attention. In many countries in the Global North, people became painfully aware that they had ‘outsourced’ a considerable share of this work to temporary migrants. Travel restrictions and lockdown measures disrupted transnational care arrangements and threatened the continuous provision of care. This article uses the example of transnationally organised live-in care in Switzerland to exp…
Male privilege revisited: How men in female‐dominated occupations notice and actively reframe privilege
Our article aims at refocusing the debate in privilege studies from tackling the invisibility to challenging justifications of gender privilege. Focusing on instances in which men acknowledge that they receive preferential treatment, this study sheds light on how privilege is perceived and talked about in interviews with men in female‐dominated occupations. In contrast to existing literature on the invisibility of privilege to the privileged, our…
Aversions to the commodification of care: How young Swiss adults plan to organise their future families
Looking at how young Swiss adults anticipate their future families, we find a pronounced discourse of disapproval of any form of commodified childcare. Interviewees in their mid-twenties insist that children should be cared for at home and by their parents. This paper discusses these empirical findings in the light of recent debates on the commodification of care. On the one hand, the idealised notion of the home as a safe haven for children migh…
Ein sorgender Markt: Wie transnationale Vermittlungsagenturen für Seniorenbetreuung Im/mobilität, Ethnizität und Geschlecht in Wert setzen. How transnational care agencies legitimize their business by…
Processes of neoliberalization cannot be reduced to deregulation and cut-back of public services and their restructuring based on market principles. They include a new logic of how markets themselves operate. The former distinction between competition and morals − between economic values and cultural values increasingly dissolves. While public services are transformed according to market based incentives, companies are increasingly expected to of…
From Exceptionalism to Normalisation: How Narratives of Platform Companies Legitimise Precarious Work and Commodified Care
When platform companies first entered the scene, they claimed that their novel business models did not fit with existing regulations. This narrative of 'platform exceptionalism' has increasingly been discredited. This paper focuses on platform companies that mediate labour in the care sector and explores what legitimation strategies they use today. We build our argument on interviews with platform entrepreneurs in Hamburg, Vienna and Zurich and a…
Short-term circular migration and gendered negotiation of the right to the city: The case of migrant live-in care workers in Basel, Switzerland
Anticipating the transition to parenthood: The contribution of Foucaultian discourse analysis to understanding life-course patterns
Existing analyses of life-course transitions tend to take either an institutional or an agency perspective. The aim of this paper is to show how a discourse analytical approach might contribute to bridging the gap between the two perspectives and thereby broaden our understanding of life-course trajectories. To do this, it presents an empirical study that looks at how young Swiss adults anticipate the transition to parenthood. The findings show t…
Anticipating the transition to parenthood: The contribution of Foucaultian discourse analysis to understanding life-course patterns
Existing analyses of life-course transitions tend to take either an institutional or an agency perspective. The aim of this paper is to show how a discourse analytical approach might contribute to bridging the gap between the two perspectives and thereby broaden our understanding of life-course trajectories. To do this, it presents an empirical study that looks at how young Swiss adults anticipate the transition to parenthood. The findings show t…
Neoliberal subjectivity – difference, free choice and individualised responsibility in the life plans of young adults in Switzerland
This paper aims at exploring neoliberalism where it has been internalised and normalised as "neoliberal subjectivity''. Based on a Foucauldian discourse perspective, it analyses narrative interviews with young Swiss adults focusing on their life plans and their aspirations for the future from a gender perspective. The analysis documents a pronounced discourse of individualisation. The subjectivity of the interviewees is characterised by ideas of …
Aversions to the commodification of care: How young Swiss adults plan to organise their future families
Looking at how young Swiss adults anticipate their future families, we find a pronounced discourse of disapproval of any form of commodified childcare. Interviewees in their mid-twenties insist that children should be cared for at home and by their parents. This paper discusses these empirical findings in the light of recent debates on the commodification of care. On the one hand, the idealised notion of the home as a safe haven for children migh…
Ein sorgender Markt: Wie transnationale Vermittlungsagenturen für Seniorenbetreuung Im/mobilität, Ethnizität und Geschlecht in Wert setzen. How transnational care agencies legitimize their business by…
Processes of neoliberalization cannot be reduced to deregulation and cut-back of public services and their restructuring based on market principles. They include a new logic of how markets themselves operate. The former distinction between competition and morals − between economic values and cultural values increasingly dissolves. While public services are transformed according to market based incentives, companies are increasingly expected to of…
Stay-at-home fathers on the wane – In comes daddy day! Changing practices of fathering in German-speaking countries
Our commentary brings Boyer et al.’s (2017) argument of a ‘regendering of care’ through men’s growing engagement as caregivers into a dialogue with scholarship from German-speaking countries. This literature supports Boyer et al.’s claim of a connection between labour market opportunities and stay-at-home fatherhood. However, the research from our language context also suggests that fathers who are not gainfully employed do not necessarily become…
On the Construction of 24 Hours Care for the Elderly in the Swiss Media
This article analyses Swiss media coverage of 24 hours care between 2003 and 2013. Based on a discourse analysis we observe that the dominant media discourse speaks of a booming market that criticises agencies, victimises carers and idealises home care. In our discussion we analyse these results with a focus on the so-called blind spots of this media discourse. In particular, we challenge the claim of a boom in 24h care, shed light on the negativ…
Short-term circular migration and gendered negotiation of the right to the city: The case of migrant live-in care workers in Basel, Switzerland
At home with the boss: Migrant live‐in caregivers, social reproduction and constrained agency in the UK , Canada, Austria and Switzerland
In many countries of the global North, families increasingly rely on live‐in caregivers to look after their children and elderly. Although much care work remains unpaid and informal, several states have set up a variety of migration and labour regimes to guarantee a steady supply of workers to provide paid live‐in care in the home. This paper contributes to a broadening of the focus of labour geography beyond “productive” labour by factoring in t…
Neoliberal austerity and the marketisation of elderly care
Taking the recent debate on austerity as a starting point, this paper discusses contradictions in current processes of neoliberalisation using the marketisation of elderly care in Switzerland as an example. Just as in other countries, an austerity rationality in public spending and the neoliberal restructuring of public health services paved the way for the emergence of private suppliers of 24 hours home care. These new agencies hire migrant wome…
Geographies of care work: The commodification of care, digital care futures and alternative caring visions
This article explores the growing interest in care within geography. Focusing on care as waged work, we trace current transformations through commodification and digitalisation. We discuss how the private household is turning into a precarious and feminised workplace for a growing number of workers, and we show how this development is promoted by the rise of labour agencies that facilitate the transnational recruitment of care workers. The litera…
Sending Granny to Chiang Mai: Debating Global Outsourcing of Care for the Elderly
This article ties in with existing discussions on global care chains, family separation and the devaluation of social-reproductive work. We explore the new trend of outsourcing care for the elderly to countries with lower wages. We base our analysis on the debate in the German press and supplement it with insights from ethnographic field observations in two care homes in Thailand. We identify a discourse of abandonment, which shows how outsourcin…
Male privilege revisited: How men in female‐dominated occupations notice and actively reframe privilege
Our article aims at refocusing the debate in privilege studies from tackling the invisibility to challenging justifications of gender privilege. Focusing on instances in which men acknowledge that they receive preferential treatment, this study sheds light on how privilege is perceived and talked about in interviews with men in female‐dominated occupations. In contrast to existing literature on the invisibility of privilege to the privileged, our…
Who shapes migration in open labour markets? Analysing migration infrastructures and brokers of circularly migrating home care workers in Switzerland
Fostered by the free movement of workers agreement in the Schengen area, a new market for live-in care work has emerged. Private for-profit care agencies recruit circular migrant women from Eastern Europe and place them in private households for senior care in Western Europe. This paper looks at the recruitment and placement practices of these agencies. Drawing on concepts on migration infrastructures and a politics of mobility, we argue that the…
Care crises and care fixes under Covid-19: The Example of Transnational Live-in Care Work
The COVID-19 pandemic brought care work to the forefront of attention. In many countries in the Global North, people became painfully aware that they had ‘outsourced’ a considerable share of this work to temporary migrants. Travel restrictions and lockdown measures disrupted transnational care arrangements and threatened the continuous provision of care. This article uses the example of transnationally organised live-in care in Switzerland to exp…
Hidden platform subsidies: The Role of Social Networks in Concealing (Too) Low Income on Care Work Platforms
As digital labour mediation platforms became prominent in the late 2010s, they were soon associated with deteriorating labour conditions, especially for ride hailing, delivery and crowd work. Yet studies are more ambivalent about their effects on care work, i.e. domestic work and home care for children and seniors. As care work was already informal and highly precarious before, digital platforms held the promise of (partially) formalizing it. Con…
This big shadow that we need to turn into light' - How labour intermediaries moralise commodified domestic care work
Domestic care workers have long been largely invisible in labour statistics and in public and policy debates. The emergence of digital labour intermediaries has exposed domestic care workers to a new, but problematic, individual visibility: to find jobs and customers, they must create digital public profiles with personal information. Accordingly, scholars emphasise that this individualised visibility poses risks to privacy and security of domest…
From Exceptionalism to Normalisation: How Narratives of Platform Companies Legitimise Precarious Work and Commodified Care
When platform companies first entered the scene, they claimed that their novel business models did not fit with existing regulations. This narrative of 'platform exceptionalism' has increasingly been discredited. This paper focuses on platform companies that mediate labour in the care sector and explores what legitimation strategies they use today. We build our argument on interviews with platform entrepreneurs in Hamburg, Vienna and Zurich and a…
Underemployed but overworked: Reframing the paradox of underemployment through the lens of racial capitalism
This article reframes time-related underemployment through the lens of racial capitalism. This lens enables an understanding of underemployment as more than an effect of neoliberalisation, but as a consequence of othering processes intrinsic to capitalism that render specific communities exploitable. To illustrate our conceptual argument, we draw on in-person interviews with underemployed workers in the commercial cleaning sector in Switzerland. …
Sociology (13 works) · Political science (12 works) · Economics (10 works) · Employment and Welfare Studies (10 works) · Care work (8 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Economic growth (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (6 works) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation (5 works)