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<p>Latin American women who migrate to Buenos Aires, Argentina often participate in forms of commodified socially reproductive labor, in which middle-class families rely on them to access the workforce, outsourcing to them their housework and care work. Simultaneously, migrant women’s participation in such forms of commodified socially reproductive labor goes hand-in-hand with processes of precarization. Drawing from ethnographic research with Latin American migrant women household workers and migrant women household workers’ rights advocates in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, this article examines the ways in which these workers’ experiences as precarious socially reproductive laborers shapes ethnographic research with them and their advocates in methodological terms. The article argues that workers’ experiences of precarity must be understood not only as a socioeconomic condition and as an ontological experience for them, but also as a framework determining every single methodological choice when conducting ethnographic research with them&#xa0;and their advocates. This includes attending to every single dimension of what may constitute our fieldwork, attending to our positionality vis-à-vis our interlocutors, and attending to our relationships of collaboration that are central to the praxis of ethnography. In centering precarity as a methodological framework in the design and execution of every single&#xa0;aspect of ethnographic fieldwork from beginning to end, the article aims to contribute to&#xa0;current reflection, problematization, and rethinking of methodological approaches that&#xa0;have become normative in anthropology. It also aims to attend to the intrinsic&#xa0;relationship between methods, ethics, and politics that is integral to the craft of&#xa0;ethnography.</p>

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Precarity as a methodological framework in the study of socially reproductive labor: insights from an ethnography with migrant women household workers and their advocates in the semi-periphery of global capitalism

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年6月2日

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  • María Lis Baiocchi

摘要

Latin American women who migrate to Buenos Aires, Argentina often participate in forms of commodified socially reproductive labor, in which middle-class families rely on them to access the workforce, outsourcing to them their housework and care work. Simultaneously, migrant women’s participation in such forms of commodified socially reproductive labor goes hand-in-hand with processes of precarization. Drawing from ethnographic research with Latin American migrant women household workers and migrant women household workers’ rights advocates in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, this article examines the ways in which these workers’ experiences as precarious socially reproductive laborers shapes ethnographic research with them and their advocates in methodological terms. The article argues that workers’ experiences of precarity must be understood not only as a socioeconomic condition and as an ontological experience for them, but also as a framework determining every single methodological choice when conducting ethnographic research with them and their advocates. This includes attending to every single dimension of what may constitute our fieldwork, attending to our positionality vis-à-vis our interlocutors, and attending to our relationships of collaboration that are central to the praxis of ethnography. In centering precarity as a methodological framework in the design and execution of every single aspect of ethnographic fieldwork from beginning to end, the article aims to contribute to current reflection, problematization, and rethinking of methodological approaches that have become normative in anthropology. It also aims to attend to the intrinsic relationship between methods, ethics, and politics that is integral to the craft of ethnography.