WOMEN IN PAID DOMESTIC WORK AND THE GEOGRAPHIES OF HOME: VOICES FROM NAIROBI, KENYA

The concept of paid domestic work mostly centers on women domestic workers both in the Global North and South. Paid domestic work is predominantly undertaken by migrant women or women from lower socio economic backgrounds; this way differentiating it from other forms of labor in the microspaces of home. Current feminist scholarship suggests that paid domestic work is conceptualized as social reproductive labor. This study was informed by the theory of social reproduction and its relation to the labor category of women domestic workers that is neglected. The analysis of the empirical data was conceptualized through the concept of intersectionality highlighting how race, class and sex contribute to social and economic marginalization. Scholarship from academic debates in the Global North have progressed in understanding intersectionality with regard to migrant women domestic workers experiences, but this has less been theorized in the Global South. The aim of this study is therefore to explore and understand intersectionality and the experiences of paid domestic work by women and its contribution to the Geographies of home adapting it to the local context in Kenya. The study was conducted through a focus group discussion complemented by photo elicitation with eight women in the capital city of Kenya, Nairobi. The research contributes to ongoing decolonial feminist debates towards social justice for women domestic workers providing novel knowledge advancements moving from the African context.