Afeto, desigualdade e rebeldia : bastidores do serviço doméstico.

Abstract

This study, centered on the power relations established between domestic workers and their employers, is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the state of Espirito Santo between 1996 and 1998. Adopting and analytic approach based on the work of Shellee Colen and James Scott, we investigate these relations in terms of a system of stratified reproduction, taking into consideration political inequality and exploitation as well as the functional aspects which work in the interests of both partners of this relation. Trough participant observation in the employers’ as well the maids’ homes, we gained access to the hidden transcripts of each group, leading us to raise hypotheses on the particular mix of affection, inequality, and rebellion which underwrites class relations in Brazil.