An Issue of Social Reproduction
The author examines the ways in which some women make an issue of the social reproduction of their household and community in their relations with their domestic employers in Mauritius. The object of study is based on empirical data that gathers the narratives of fifteen women encountered in a specific fieldwork situation, which is detailed. The analysis of their subjectivity on domestic service brings together different contexts: the social relationships of the southern-western coastal space of Mauritius, the Mauritian sugar economy restructuring since 2000 and the global division of reproductive work. The exploration of domestic service relations from the domestic workers’ point of view leads to examine the economic, social, normative and cultural dimensions of their quest for the social reproduction of their household and community in the current conjuncture. Hence lies in the offspring of dissidence to domination.