DTS415H1

Diaspora at Home

What is the relationship between diaspora and domesticity? What does it mean to inhabit the position of the stranger not in the public life of the city, but in the private sphere of the household? This course approaches questions of migration, labour, and foreignness through the prism of the home. We consider the international phenomenon of migrant domestic labour and how it shapes social and family relations, both in countries of origin such as the Philippines and Ethiopia, as well as in countries of employment such as Canada and Lebanon. But we also reflect on how migration radically transforms life inside the home, affecting what it means to be a parent, a child, or a partner. In doing so we draw upon diverse representations of “the family”, kinship, and intimacy across both the humanities and the social sciences.