Abstract
This paper analyses the instrumentalisation of gendered and racialised labour by considering the linguistic-discursive dimensions of discourses produced in newspapers about Ugandan domestic workers seeking work in the Gulf States. It explores the concept of objectification and how it creates grounds for the commodification not just of women’s labour power, but also of domestic workers themselves through state-facilitated migration programmes. I argue that this commodification is possible because of the historical devaluing of social reproductive labour structured by gender, race, class, and migratory status which intersect to produce a domestic worker identity. This identity marks racialised women as most suitable for domestic labour, while also eroding their agency and freedom to control their own labour power, and in the process, enabling capital accumulation for vested interests in the migration industry.
Read the full article below or download HERE