Anna Safuta - Between familialism and formalization: Domestic services provided informally by migrant workers in two diverging policy contexts

Le Recteur de l'Université catholique de Louvain fait savoir que

Anna Safuta

soutiendra publiquement sa dissertation pour l'obtention du titre de
Docteure en Sciences Politiques et Sociales

“Between familialism and formalization: Domestic services provided informally
by migrant workers in two diverging policy contexts”

Abstract: This PhD thesis is a study of personalization processes in domestic services
(housework and elderly care giving) provided informally by migrant workers. Personalization
is the opposite of (1) identity essentialization, (2) standardization (of the labour process and its
ouput) and (3) distancing (of the service provider from beneficiaries). Consequently, the study
investigates the impact of personalization on (1) workers and beneficiaries’ mutual pereptions
of identity, (2) on workers’ autonomy on the job, (3) and on workers and beneficiaries’ workrelated emotions. Fieldwork among migrant providers and native beneficiaries of domestic
services in Belgium and in Warsaw (Poland) confirms the high frequency of personalization in
this occupation, and the absence of the distanced ‘self-entrepreneurial’ model of provision
identified in other contexts (Lutz 2011; Romero 1992). Personalization enables migrant
workers to counteract essentialization along national/ethnic lines and become irreplaceable.
From beneficiaries’ perspective, the long-term employment relationships established through
personalization counteract employer selection processes characterizing informality. However,
these advantages come at the cost of a tabooization of the economic character of domestic
service provision, precluding workers from asking for wage raises or exacting their worker
rights. Personalization also negatively affects migrant domestic workers’ already meagre
opportunities for professional mobility.
Membres du jury :
Professeure Florence Degavre (UCL), co-promotrice
Professeure Helma Lutz (Goethe-Universität, Francfort-sur-le-Main), co-promotrice
Professeure Natalie Rigaux (UNamur), secrétaire et membre du comité d’encadrement de la thèse
Professeure Małgorzata Fuszara (Université de Varsovie, UW), membre du comité d’encadrement
Professeure Daniela Grunow (Goethe-Universität, Francfort-sur-le-Main), examinatrice externe
Professeur Eric Mangez (UCL), président