I don't clean up after myself

Epistemic Ignorance, Responsibility and the Politics of the Outsourcing of Domestic Cleaning

Bibliographic Data

ID5156250
AuthorsRiikka Prattes (0000-0003-3094-4267, Independent Researcher, Australia, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume21
Issue1
Pages25-45
Publication date2020-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-7001 • E-ISSN: 1741-2773
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1464700119842560
OpenAlexW2941055842
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited28

In this article, I propose to look at the organisation of reproductive labour in the 'global North' through a lens of epistemic ignorance. Focusing on the process of outsourcing, I argue that it creates forms of irresponsibility, and with it, epistemic ignorance. The devaluation of domestic work and the degradation of domestic workers is shaped by gendered and colonial ideologies, and Western epistemologies. These epistemologies underpin a strong subject/object split and buffer the denial of existing interdependencies. I problematise those epistemologies by drawing on feminist care ethics, accounts of relational selves and relational responsibility, and alternative epistemologies. Grounding that discussion on vignettes from an in-depth study of heterosexual couples in Austrian households who outsource domestic work, I argue that the systematic failure to see what and who we are connected to in the domestic realm is shaped by gendered and racialised privilege, and driven by an epistemology of separation. My argument will unfold in two steps. First, I use the concept of the skin as an example of how the beliefs in an independent, autonomous self and a strong subject/object split disguise connectedness and relationality. This leads me to the second step, in which I explicate my notion of semipermeable membranes - a thinking together of ontological permeability and ethical responsiveness. I argue that active forms of 'unknowing' at work in 'mundane,' everyday, domestic performances have far-reaching consequences

Epistemology · Ignorance · Sociology · Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Philosophy · Sex work and related issues

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