Many families leave their children for years to be looked after by
young people about whom they know next to nothing, from places they
have barely heard of. Who are these au pairs, why do they come and
what is their experience of this arrangement? Do they, for their
part, find that they are treated as one of the family, and would
they even want to be? After a year of careful research, this book
shows how most of our assumptions and expectations about au pairs
are wrong.
This is the first book devoted to the lives of au pairs, their
leisure as well as their work time. We see this world from the eyes
of the visitors, and their unique perspective on what lies at the
heart of our family life. The book does not flinch from documenting
the realities of the situation D the racism and the
problematic behaviour of the au pairs themselves, as much as the
ignorance and exploitation they can be subject to. The book is a
case study in how to come to feel modern life empathetically from
the viewpoint of one of those many migrant groups we take for
granted and rely on but rarely try to understand.
young people about whom they know next to nothing, from places they
have barely heard of. Who are these au pairs, why do they come and
what is their experience of this arrangement? Do they, for their
part, find that they are treated as one of the family, and would
they even want to be? After a year of careful research, this book
shows how most of our assumptions and expectations about au pairs
are wrong.
This is the first book devoted to the lives of au pairs, their
leisure as well as their work time. We see this world from the eyes
of the visitors, and their unique perspective on what lies at the
heart of our family life. The book does not flinch from documenting
the realities of the situation D the racism and the
problematic behaviour of the au pairs themselves, as much as the
ignorance and exploitation they can be subject to. The book is a
case study in how to come to feel modern life empathetically from
the viewpoint of one of those many migrant groups we take for
granted and rely on but rarely try to understand.
Cuprins
Acknowledgements viiPrologue 1
1 Why Not? 5
2 An Embarrassing Presence 32
3 The Hard Work and the Soft Touch 60
4 Sort of English 87
5 Bored in Beddlingham 114
6 Men 137
7 Out of Time 156
8 Conclusion: Structure, Behaviour and Consequence 171
Appendix: Academic Studies of Domestic Labour 184
References 200
Index 204
Despre autor
Zuzana Búriková is a researcher at the Institute ofEthnology SAV, Slovakia and Lecturer at Masaryk University, Czech
Republic
Daniel Miller is Professor of Anthropology at University College,
London
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Limba Engleză ● Format EPUB ● Pagini 240 ● ISBN 9780745659572 ● Mărime fișier 0.3 MB ● Editura John Wiley & Sons ● Publicat 2013 ● Ediție 1 ● Descărcabil 24 luni ● Valută EUR ● ID 2673833 ● Protecție împotriva copiilor Adobe DRM
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