“For the mistress… we are simply labour”: Testimonies of Domestic Work in Latin America

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A public lecture with guest speaker Dr Rachel Randall (University of Bristol) as part of the Citizens and Borders & Bodies research themes at the School.

Abstract

This presentation will examine literary testimonies (co-)authored by domestic workers that were published across Latin America during the 1980s and 1990s. It focuses in particular on two testimonies that present themselves, in differing ways, as explicitly collective endeavours: Lenira Carvalho’s Só a gente que vive é que sabe/Only Those Who Live it Can Understand (1982) and Ana Gutiérrez’s Se necesita muchacha/Maid Wanted (1983). These texts elucidate the extent to which the publication of testimonies of domestic work throughout the region was linked to the emergence of nascent domestic workers’ unions at the time. The testimonies’ focus on workers’ inhumane treatment by their employers sheds light on the attempt to reduce these employees to bodies to be exploited – or to ‘bare life’ (Agamben 1998) – instead of recognising their status as citizens. Among other factors, this has allowed for the historical and legal discrimination that domestic workers have faced when compared with other kinds of employees. Nonetheless, the entry of these texts into the public, literary sphere formed part of these workers’ attempt to clamour for equal rights in a profession that had largely been unregulated as a result of its confinement to the domestic space. The presentation will conclude by demonstrating how Carvalho’s testimony, and those collected by Gutiérrez, can be used to elaborate a framework through which to analyse the unique challenges domestic workers face. It will also reflect on the importance of these testimonies for the continuing struggles surrounding these workers’ public and creative representations.

Biography

Rachel Randall is Lecturer in Hispanic Media and Digital Communications at the University of Bristol. Her current research project, which has been funded by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship (2016-2019), explores portrayals of paid domestic workers in post-dictatorship Latin American cultural production, including in literary testimony, film, documentary and digital culture. Her broader research interests encompass Latin American cultural studies and cultural history. She is the author of Children on the Threshold in Contemporary Latin American Cinema (Lexington, 2017) and co-editor of New Visions of Adolescence in Contemporary Latin American Cinema (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

Simultaneous Translation

The event will be delivered in the medium of English. You are welcome to ask questions in the medium of Welsh during the Q&A session. If you intend to do this, please contact mlang-events@cardiff.ac.uk by Wednesday 9 October to request simultaneous translation. Please note that 10% or more of those planning to attend will need to request this provision in order for it to be sourced and will be subject to resource availability.

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