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Women and Paid Domestic Work in Mexico: Food, Sexuality and Motherhood

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Women and Paid Domestic Work in Mexico: Food, Sexuality and Motherhood Women and Paid Domestic Work in Mexico: Food, Sexuality and Motherhood Abril Guadalupe Saldaña Tejeda Department of Sociology School of Social Sciences A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2011 No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. Copyright Statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=487), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library‟s regulations (see http://www.manchester.ac.uk/library/aboutus/regulations) and in The University‟s policy on Presentation of Theses. 2 Contents Abstract ................................................................................................ 5 Acknowledgments .................................................................................. 6 1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 7 Chapter 2: Conceptual Framework: Paid Domestic Work and Ambiguity.......22 2.1 Defining Housework through the Public/Private Debate and the „Intersectional‟ Experience........................................….…..23 2.2 Literature Review: International, Regional and National Studies on Paid Domestic Work ................................................. 28 2.3 Looking at gender, race and class through the lenses of immigration: the case of paid domestic work....................................................................34 2.4 Servants as „the guiding thread‟ of social organisation: Michel Foucault, Ann Stoler and Anne McClintock .................................... 39 2.5 The „Cosmic Race‟ and the Construction of Mexico‟s National Identity .... 44 2.5.1 „On the way of losing their identity‟: Guanajuato Mestizo ............ 50 2.6 Conclusion ..................................................................................... 51 Chapter 3: Methods „This is the best day of your life‟ ................................ 54 3.1 Research Questions and Methods ...................................................... 55 3.2 Mapping the Site of the Study, Two Neighbourhoods and the Self ......... 56 3.2.1 The Socioeconomic Mapping of Cuchicuato and Villas de Irapuato....... 56 3.2.2 Mapping the self .................................................................... 58 3.3 Methods: Interviewing, Observation and the Women in the Study ........ 62 3.3.1 Individual and Group Interviewing ................................................ 62 3.3.2 Recruiting and Interviewing Domestic Workers from Irapuato. .......... 65 3.3.4 Recruiting and Interviewing Employers..... ..................................... 68 3.3.5 Observations and Reflections from the Field .............................. 71 3.4 Ethical Procedures, Representation and Politics .................................. 77 3.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................... 81 Chapter 4: “Why should I not take an apple or a fruit if I wash her underwear?‟‟Food and Social Classification .............................. 82 4.1 Creative Dualities and Common Origins in the Construction of the „true‟ Mexican: Culinary and Human mestizaje ................................... 83 4.2 The People of Maize: the Racial History of Food in Mexico .................... 85 4.3 „We had our plastic plates and plastic cups and theirs weren‟t: theirs were pink‟: Food, Disgust and Shame.............................................89 4.4 Feast Foods: The Social Display of Difference and the Reaffirmation of „Maternal‟ Love ............................................................. 96 4.5 Conclusion .................................................................................... 101 3 Chapter 5: ꞌThe black woman for cleaning, the mulatto woman for bedding and the white woman for marryingꞌ: Sexuality and Paid Domestic Work…...103 5.1 „Goddess of loves and sensualities, what can she be but a dirty, filthy and stained goddess?‟ Tlazolteotl: Pollution and Sexuality in Pre-Hispanic Mexico .............................................................................................. 104 5.2 „You better not tell my mother!‟: Domestic Workers‟ Experiences of Sexual Harassment.. ..................................................... 109 5.3 „There is no way to help them, as women they don‟t value themselves‟: Female Employers, Gender Contradiction and Deviant Sexualities ............ 116 5.4 Conclusion ................................................................................... 122 Chapter 6: Between Malinche, Guadalupe and La Llorona: Paid Domestic Work and Motherhood in Mexico...................................... 124 6.1 „Our three mothers‟: Mexican Motherhood. ....................................... 126 6.2 ‘Cool mothers‟, Happy Children and Loyal nannies: Mediating M/Othering Through Paid Domestic Work ................................ 130 6.3 Unfit/dangerous Mothers as Indispensable Nannies: Difference and Interdependence Between Women .................................. 136 6.4 „You break your soul working, Mom‟: Domestic Workers, Motherhood, Resistance and the Limits of Transformation ....................... 142 6.5 Conclusion ................................................................................... 148 7.Conclusion ...................................................................................... 150 References ........................................................................................ 189 Appendix ........................................................................................... 183 Words: 64 843 4 Abstract Women and Paid Domestic Work in Mexico: Food, Sexuality and Motherhood The University of Manchester Abril G. Saldaña Tejeda PhD in Sociology This thesis explores women in paid domestic work in Mexico. The thesis draws on qualitative interviewing and observation involving the participation of women domestic workers and women who employ domestic workers. The thesis argues that racial difference in Mexico has been disguised for centuries by the myth of mestizaje (the notion of racial and cultural mixture) and racial homogenisation. The study of paid domestic work in Mexico makes visible the exclusionary discourses and practices that maintain the low status of this occupation by virtue of women‟s gender, class and race. The institutionalised discrimination of domestic workers in Mexico is explained by their proximity to the middle class and therefore the perceived threat of bodily transgressions. Through the study of food, sexuality and motherhood this thesis demonstrates that, in the context of mestizaje, women in paid domestic work are imagined as „not so Other‟. The thesis looks into the racial history of food in Mexico and the parallels between human and culinary mestizaje. It argues that food distinctions in Mexico are still a powerful mechanism to mark class, gender and racial difference. This work demonstrates that both human and culinary mestizaje have never been neutral constructions and involved a silent but powerful hierarchy of imagined racial origins. Food and sexuality are said to be deeply linked, as both experiences manifest bodily boundaries and are perceived as necessary for social reproduction. This thesis looks at the sexualisation of paid domestic work in Mexico. It argues that women in this occupation are sexualised since their proximity to the middle class informs concerns over workers‟ ambiguous place within an order of social classifications. The sexualisation of workers manifests not an individual fantasy but rather a collective one where female employers, the state, the media and education are also involved. The thesis looks at women‟s experiences around motherhood. It argues that paid domestic work constrains workers‟ right both to become and to be mothers and enables female employers to follow middle class notions of „cool‟ mothering. It looks at the
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