The work of immigrant women, between caregiving and exploitation: nannies, housekeepers and care workers

Abstract

Family care has always had the “natural” depositary in the female gender, “inclined” to care the most fragile family members, looking after this context, free
of charge “by disposition”. However, there is something not working anymore inside
the Italian system. Family transformations need new spaces and time for
caregiving, these are often devolved to immigrant women: nannies, housekeepers
and care workers. This constantly growing phenomenon carries lights and shadows
with it. Opportunities and forced choices, interdependencies and absences,
spaces of well-being and inequalities, on which we need to ponder and act, originate in ineffective welfare systems and migrations. Strong questions for a pedagogy that cannot avoid intervention in the present complex systems.