Transformations and Configurations of Domestic Service in Latin America: Argentina and Brazil

The aim of this dossier is to explore some of the specific dynamics that characterize paid domestic work in Latin American countries through different analyses that focus on Argentina and Brazil. We wish to examine which issues Latin American social sciences have paid the most attention to in relation to this occupation and to see how these issues fit in with the main perspectives found in the international literature on domestic workers, which has developed particularly vigorously in recent decades. By looking at different aspects of domestic work, the articles that make up this dossier enter into dialogue with the core issues of the sociology of work in Latin America. These articles thus analyze the composition of the sector in Argentina and Brazil and labor conditions there, which are characterized by employment conditions that have historically been informal or precarious. They highlight recent transformations in state regulations and public policy for the sector, the impacts these have had, and their ambivalent meanings. They also demonstrate the importance of domestic workers' activism through labor unions and associations during these processes of change. Finally, these texts explore the way in which the different dynamics of inequality that structure Latin American societies (inequalities of gender and social class, ethnicity, and race) have shaped experiences of domestic work and relationships between workers and their employers