"We're better employers here": Paid domestic work and the employer universe in a comparison between Brazil and Argentina

Abstract

Considering the importance of paid domestic work in Latin America in economic, social and political terms, as well as the complex web of inequalities that make it up intersectionally, this research project focuses its ethnographic analysis on domestic employers, seeking a comparative approach between two important countries in the region: Brazil and Argentina. The proposal will consist of an approach to the "employers' universe" in these two contexts based on three main axes of observation: legislation, employers' unions and employers' discourses and practices. Through ethnographic research in both countries, which will include the analysis of laws and documents, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, analysis of printed and digital materials, images, etc., the research will aim to understand the practices, perceptions, collective organising strategies and behaviours of domestic employers in Brazil and Argentina. Thus, the specific focus on domestic employers will consist of understanding the discourses and practices of these subjects, as well as understanding and making them visible as important agents in the asymmetrical construction of PDW (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1997; Teixeira, 2021a). Comparatively analysing PDW relations in Brazil and Argentina will therefore allow us to look at the broader, structural issues to which this sector relates.