The unforgiving work environment of black African women domestic workers in a post-apartheid South Africa
Development in Practice
; 33(2):168-179, 2023.
Article
in English
| ProQuest Central | ID: covidwho-2293942
ABSTRACT
In democratic South Africa, many Black African women are still subjugated by being employed as domestic workers. Increasing evidence emerged amid the COVID-19 pandemic revealing unmistakable signs of modern-day slavery among South African Black domestic workers. This paper proposes a clinical model which examines how gender, class, and race intersections affect the ways in which specifically identified change agents offer new, transforming interventions via clinical intervention. Adopting a clinical approach augments identification of a specific social problem from a scientifically systematic applied approach built on applied theory. We report on the conditions facing vulnerable Black African women using a bricolage research approach. The resulting model explicitly identifies systemic inequalities and indicates how to reduce exploitation and protect workers. The bricolage approach aided the secondary qualitative analysis of complex bonded-labour intersections. The problem of Black African women living as bonded domestic labour is augmented by the girl children's primary socialisation, Western patriarchal re-socialisation which sustains apartheid, and race, class, occupational, and gender inequalities.
Business And Economics--International Development And Assistance; Bonded labour; clinical intervention; domestic worker; enslavement; post-apartheid; South Africa; women; Apartheid; Slavery; Intervention; Exploitation; Housework; COVID-19; Change agents; Work environment; Socialization; Qualitative research; Workers; Gender inequality; Race; Domestic labour; Work; Approaches; Labor; Black people; Domestic service; Pandemics; Bricolage
Full text:
Available
Collection:
Databases of international organizations
Database:
ProQuest Central
Language:
English
Journal:
Development in Practice
Year:
2023
Document Type:
Article
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