Imperial Domesticities, 18th-20th Centuries
Les domesticités impériales, XVIIIe-XXe siècle
Published on Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Abstract
In recent decades, the study of imperial domesticities has undergone significant renewal and has attracted increasing attention. Whether servile or not, domestic work, performed daily within the intimate family framework of the home, is a fertile ground for observing the racial, social, and gender dynamics that develop in imperial territories. Numerous studies have shown that the colonial household and the domestic service relationship, far from being anecdotal, are crucial for understanding how relations of domination are forged, reformulated, and contested within colonial societies (Stoler, 2002). This conference aims to build on these studies.
Announcement
Argument
Since the 1990s, the study of domesticity has enjoyed renewed attention, as evidenced by the rich multilingual bibliography compiled by Raffaella Sarti in 2014 (Sarti, 2014). This interest, spanning all social sciences and not confined to history, partly arises from the current global rise in domestic work, contradicting predictions like those of sociologist Lewis Coser in 1973, who believed domestic work was doomed to disappear in developed countries due to “the unsustainable contradiction between the inherent subjugation of domestic work and prevailing democratic values” (Ibos, 2021). Far from disappearing, domesticity has, since the 1990s, become a global market characterized by numerous and intense migratory flows.
The study of domesticities and domestic work in colonial empires has long suffered from both disciplinary and theoretical compartmentalization. Within labor history, domestic work—a subordinate and often invisible work that was only regulated by the ILO in 2011— has been overlooked in favor of the study of industrial wage labor and collective mobilizations, particularly those of industrial workers, from which domestic workers were by definition excluded. Furthermore, in studies of domestic work, colonized territories have long held a marginal place (Haskins and Lowrie, 2015).
In recent decades, however, the study of imperial domesticities has undergone significant renewal and has attracted increasing attention. Whether servile or not, domestic work, performed daily within the intimate family framework of the home, is a fertile ground for observing the racial, social, and gender dynamics that develop in imperial territories. Numerous studies have shown that the colonial household and the domestic service relationship, far from being anecdotal, are crucial for understanding how relations of domination are forged, reformulated, and contested within colonial societies (Stoler, 2002). This conference aims to build on these studies.
Proposals may cover a broad chronological range, from the 18th century to the 20th-century independence movements and up until the post-colonial period. For periods preceding abolition, the complex relationships between slavery and domesticity, whose boundaries are not always clearly defined and which often play a role in the process of acquiring freedom, will be examined. This will also help assess the colonial legacy in the history of paid domestic work. While the chosen sequence centers on the colonial period, it does not intend to erase previous legacies or oversimplify the power dynamics induced by colonization. Many studies have highlighted the existence of ancient forms of domestic work, particularly servile and child labor, in territories colonized by Europeans in the 19th century (Lieten and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, 2011; Thioub, 2010; Tranberg Hansen, 2011). The modalities, overlaps, and effects of the encounter between these ancient forms of domestic work and the wage labor introduced by colonizers constitute one of the research avenues of this conference. Moreover, adopting an extended chronological framework invites consideration that the employment of domestic workers is not solely a European phenomenon, thereby acknowledging the frequent reliance of African and Asian elites and middle classes on paid or coerced domestic labor, both during the colonial period and after independence (Deslaurier, 2019). Finally, the conference will provide an opportunity to compare empirical approaches rooted in specific geographical, political, social, economic, and historical contexts, which shape the conditions, forms, and modalities of domestic service, as well as the modes of collective organization that emerge. Contributions employing iconographic approaches are welcome.
In the wake of the new imperial history, the adopted scale is an imperial one that encompasses various colonized territories, metropoles, and transit locations (mainly the ocean liners of maritime companies) where domestics worked (Cooper and Stoler, 1997). Comparative perspectives are welcome, as one of the conference’s goals is to reintegrate domestic work in colonial settings into the broader history of labor to understand both its specificities and possible common dynamics. These dynamics include forms of resistance by domestics against their employers, training and remuneration conditions, working conditions, and modes of collective organization. Analyses focusing on different colonial empires can also test the hypothesis of a “transcolonial culture of domesticity”, resulting from individual, commercial, and intellectual exchanges between colonies and between colonies and metropoles (Lowrie, 2016).
Among the numerous potential avenues of discussion, certain topics will receive special attention.
1) The specificities of domestic work
The specificities of domestic work, which takes place within the family and intimate household settings, and how this context influences, reconfigures, or even subverts labor relations, family relations, and sexuality in an imperial context marked by specific racial, social, and gender segregation, will be central to the conference. Presentations may focus on the precise nature of tasks performed by domestics, as well as their spatial and temporal aspects. Domestic work involves physical labor, handling various objects (panka, iron, broom, etc.), mastering a wide range of gestures and techniques (cooking, ironing, childcare, cleaning, gardening, and hygiene care), and adhering to strong norms regarding appearance, posture, and demeanor. Domestic service also entails control over available but confined bodies, disrupting the rhythms of wakefulness and sleep, presence and physical absence. A material culture approach will help refocus attention on these aspects, often secondary in existing studies, as if the nature of domestic work had a universal, ahistorical obviousness.
More broadly, this conference aims to continue analyzing domesticities through the lenses of race, gender, class, and age. These matrices of power, whose heuristic richness has been demonstrated by intersectional analyses, constantly interact and hold varying importance depending on geographical and historical contexts. While female domesticities have been the primary focus of research, male domesticities, which still exist in many formerly colonized countries, invite further analysis in terms of gender and sexuality (Bujra, 2000, Gardini, 2016, Martinez, Lowrie, Steel, and Haskins, 2019).
Sexuality plays a central role in the often intimate and close relationships engendered by domesticity, whether servile or not, involving interactions between domestics and their masters/employers, with other residents of the household, or among the domestics themselves. In the European context, Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux partly explains the significant decline in illegitimate conceptions by the reduction of domestic service in the 19th century (Fauve- Chamoux, 2011). Additionally, in a colonial context where sexual violence and rape are daily occurrences, the access to the body and sexuality by masters is intrinsic to the servile condition and appears as one of the primary characteristics of the domination system (Campbell, Elbourne, 2014; Vidal, 2019). This conference proposes to analyze the types of sexual and sometimes emotional relationships that arise from these cohabitations marked by profound inequalities, questioning their more or less coerced nature. It also invites reflection on how slaves and/or domestics accommodate these situations and their consequences on the household, which can lead to long-term concubinages or extramarital relationships. In other words, it aims to study the "economic-sexual exchanges" (Paola Tabet, 2004) that domesticity often involves, especially in colonial settings. In this regard, the reflection should not be limited to the relationships between masters/employers and their female domestics/slaves, which have been predominantly studied. This conference encourages the inclusion of other forms of sexuality, such as homosexual relationships, a theme still largely unexplored in the field of male domesticity in particular.
2) The modalities and forms of domestic work
he modalities and forms of domestic work, which often occupy a grey area between coerced labor and free wage labor, constitute a second avenue of reflection. From this perspective, the conditions of training, employment, contracting, and remuneration, as well as the status of domestics in an imperial context, can be explored, recontextualized within a broader European framework, and compared with possible local traditions of domestic work. The connection between domestic work performed in the service of colonizers and the work of “pawned” or “adopted” children can thus be examined (Klein and Roberts, 2003; Pilon and Ségniagbéto, 2014).
Following the preceding, the issue of child domestic labor, long overlooked by historiography more attentive to variables of gender and race than to age, will receive particular attention. While industrial child labor in 19th-century European metropoles and the political and legislative reactions it aroused have been studied, the question remains largely unexplored in the case of child domestic labor in a colonial context (Pomfret, 2008; Swain and Hillel, 2010). In the wake of studies discussing the legislative and regulatory framework of certain forms of child domestic labor, such as the mui tsai system in Malaysia and Hong Kong (Leow, 2012), papers can investigate the recognition of child domestic labor in other imperial spaces and how it prompted—or did not prompt—legislative measures from national authorities and international organizations in the 19th and 20th centuries.
3) Individual trajectories, forms of resistance and collective mobilizations
Finally, a last area of focus will be on individual trajectories and forms of resistance and collective mobilizations. The mobilities—regional, imperial, trans-imperial, and global—of domestics are also central to the conference’s concerns. Are these mobilities forced or voluntary? What are their trajectories and periodicity? How do domestics travel? The study of specific mobility networks or individual journeys can also offer an opportunity to explore the forms and limits of domestic workers’ agency, as geographical mobility can also support individual, family, and collective strategies for social and professional mobility.
The individual and collective resistances of domestics to the domination they face constitute the last area of reflection. Long obscured by the intimate nature of domestic work carried out within the home, away from the public sphere, these resistances manifest themselves both on an individual scale, through a variety of tactics including expressions of discontent, petty theft, and passive resistance to orders (Ranime Alsheltawy and Alizée Delpierre, 2021), and on a collective scale (Jacquemin and Tisseau, 2019). Although the regulation of domestic work is very recent, domestic workers have, since the early decades of the 20th century, adopted modes of collective organization and forms of mobilization and protest, including associations, political movements, and unions. The circulation of political models between metropoles and colonies and the potential rivalries that may have arisen also constitute a possible field of inquiry, with many post-colonial continuations.
One of the objectives of this conference is to foster the meeting and dialogue among international specialists in domesticities across different colonial empires. Therefore, the conference will encourage the use of English as much as possible for communication. Proposals from young researchers are particularly encouraged.
Submission Guidelines
Submission Guidelines Proposals should include
*Name, surname, and email address *Institutional affiliations *Title of the presentation *An abstract of the presentation (2000 characters / 300 words) *A short biographical note (500 characters / 100 words)
They should be sent to the following addresses: stephanie.soubrier@unige.ch ; loraine.chappuis@unige.ch
by September 16, 2024.
Organisation
Loraine Chappuis, Université de Genève, et Stéphanie Soubrier, Université de Genève
Quoted references
Janet Bujra, Serving Class: Masculinity and the Feminization of Domestic Service in Tanzania, Édimbourg, Edinburgh University Press, 2000.
Gwyn Campbell, Elizabeth Elbourne (dir.), Sex, Power, and Slavery, Athens, Ohio University Press, 2014.
Frederick Cooper & Ann Laura Stoler, Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997.
Ranime Alsheltawy et Alizée Delpierre (dir.), « Petites et grandes résistances dans les domesticités », L’Homme & la Société, 2021.
Christine Deslaurier, « Des “boys” aux “travailleurs de maison” au Burundi, ou le politique domestiqué », Politique africaine, 2019, n°154, p. 49-73.
Antoinette Fauve-Chamoux, « European illegitimacy trends in connection with domestic service and family systems (1545-2001) », in Ioan Bolovan and Peter Teibenbacher (dir.), Central Europe Population History during the first Demographic Transition, Romanian Journal of Population Studies, p. 8-45.
Marco Gardini, “Working as a “Boy”. Labour, Age & Masculinities in Togo, c. 1975-2005”, in Elodie Razy, Marie Rodet (dir.), Children on the Move in Africa: Past and Present Experiences of Migration, Oxford, James Currey, 2016, p. 104-122.
Victoria K. Haskins and Claire Lowrie (eds.), Colonization and Domestic Service. Historical and Contemporary perspectives, New York, Routledge, 2015.
Caroline Ibos, « Travail domestique/domesticité », in Juliette Rennes (dir.), Encyclopédie critique du genre, Paris, La Découverte, 2021, p. 784-794.
Mélanie Jacquemin et Violaine Tisseau, « Le balai comme objet politique. Regards sur les domesticités en Afrique », Politique africaine, 2019, n°154, p. 5-27.
Martin Klein and Richard Roberts, “The Resurgence of Pawning in French West Africa During the Depression of the 1930s”, in Paul E. Lovejoy and Toyin Falola (eds.), Pawnship, Slavery and Colonialism in Africa, Africa World Press, 2003, p. 409-426.
Rachel Leow, “Do you own non-Chinese mui-tsai?”: Reexamining race and female servitude in Malaya and Hong Kong, 1919-1939”, Modern Asian Studies, 2012.
Kristoffel Lieten and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk (eds.), Child labour’s global past, 1650s-2000, Bern, Peter Lang, 2011.
Claire Lowrie, Masters and servants: Cultures of empire in the tropics, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2016.
Julia Martinez, Claire Lowrie, Frances Steel and Victoria Haskins, Colonialism and Male Domestic Service across the Asia Pacific, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.
Marc Pilon et Kodjo Ségniagbéto, « Confiage, domesticité et apprentissage à Lomé à la veille de l’indépendance », Journal des Africanistes, n°84, 2014, p. 212-247.
David Pomfret, “’Child Slavery’ in British and French Far-Eastern Colonies, 1880-1945”, Past & Present, November 2008, n°201, p. 175-213.
Rafaella Sarti, “Historians, Social Scientists, Servants and Domestic Workers: Fifty Years of Research on Domestic and Care Work”, International Review of Social History, vol. 59, n°2, 2014, p. 279-314.
Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power. Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2010 (2002).
Shurlee Swain and Margot Hillel, Child, Nation, Race and Empire: Child Rescue Discourse, England, Canada and Australia, 1850-1915, Manchester University Press, 2010.
Paola Tabet, La Grande Arnaque. Sexualité des femmes et échanges économico-sexuel, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2004.
Ibrahima Thioub, « L’esclavage à Saint-Louis du Sénégal au XVIIIe-XIXe siècle », Jahrbuch 2008/2009, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 2010, p. 334-356.
Karen Tranberg Hansen, “Labor migration and Urban Child Labor During the Colonial Period in Zambia”, in Kristoffel Lieten and Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk (eds.), Child Labour’s Global Past, 1650s-2000, Bern, Peter Lang, 2011, p. 595-611.
Cécile Vidal, « Femmes et genre dans les historiographies sur les sociétés avec esclavage de la Caraïbe française et anglaise », Clio. Femmes, Genre, Histoire, 50, 2019, p. 189-210
Subjects
- History (Main category)
Places
- Université de Genève - Rue De-Candolle 5
Geneva, Switzerland (1205)
Event attendance modalities
Full on-site event
Date(s)
- Monday, September 16, 2024
Keywords
- domesticity, work, slavery, empire, gender, race, sexuality, resistance, collective mobilization, children
Contact(s)
- Loraine Chappuis
courriel : loraine [dot] chappuis [at] unige [dot] ch - Stéphanie Soubrier
courriel : stephanie [dot] soubrier [at] unige [dot] ch
Information source
- Loraine Chappuis
courriel : loraine [dot] chappuis [at] unige [dot] ch
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Imperial Domesticities, 18th-20th Centuries », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/1277w
