Young Spanish au pairs in London

Migration and gender tensions in the context of intra-EU mobilities

Bibliographic Data

ID2148377
AuthorsAlmudena Cortés Maisonave (0000-0002-7314-107X, Social Anthropology and Social Psychology Department, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Madrid, Spain, corresponding author), Beatriz Moncó Rebollo (0000-0002-0278-7164, Social Anthropology and Social Psychology Department, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Madrid, Spain), Fernando Barbosa (0000-0002-0028-5371, Social Anthropology and Social Psychology Department, Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Madrid, Spain)
Year2020
Volume43
Issue14
Pages2590-2606
Publication date2020-11-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnic and Racial Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9870 • E-ISSN: 1466-4356
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01419870.2020.1774071
OpenAlexW3051098145
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited28

This article explores the study of young Spanish au pairs in London within the context of intra-European migration following the 2008 financial crisis from an ethnographic, feminist and gender perspective. It contributes to a greater understanding of the ways in which the free movement of workers in the EU and the commodification of care work are linked to emerging dynamics of European (re)peripheralisation and the production of new forms of precarity. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2015 and 2017, it shows how the ambiguous, transient nature of the "au pair" category forces young female migrants to constantly renegotiate gender norms. Their experiences are shaped by gender norms that draw on the sexual division of labour to naturalize caregiving and by gender imaginaries of equal opportunities that challenge the gender order, as gender tensions intersect with the production of new forms of precarity that increase deregulation and heighten vulnerability

Care work · Commodification · Context (archaeology · Doing gender · Economy · Ethnography · European union · Geography · Mobilities · Political science · Precarity · Social science · Sociology · Vulnerability (computing · Work (physics · Anthropology · Employment and Welfare Studies · Gender Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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