Ethiopian Migrant Domestic Workers, 1st ed. 2020 Migrant Agency and Social Change Mobility & Politics Series

This book tells the stories of the Ethiopian women who migrate to work as domestic workers in the Middle East. Drawing on qualitative research in Ethiopia, Lebanon and Kuwait, the author reveals how women?s aspirations to migrate are constituted within unequal gendered structures of opportunity in Ethiopia and asks us to consider how gender, race, class and nationality intersect in the construction of migrant subjectivities and agency. By analysing the impact of migration on social reproduction both in Ethiopia and the destination countries, the book offers fresh empirical and theoretical insights into the largest stream of women?s autonomous international migration from Africa.

Bina Fernandez is Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Draws on field research conducted in both the origin country (Ethiopia) and two major destination countries (Lebanon and Kuwait) Examines the important implications behind Ethiopian women's sacrifices that affect the complex layers of family and community social reproduction Analyses the agency of migrant domestic workers, in contrast to other literature that tends to focus on their experiences of abuse and mistreatment by employers