
Intimate Inequalities
Performing Migrant Domestic Work
Ella Parry-Davies(Author)
Northwestern University Press
Will be published approx. on 30. June 2026
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-0-8101-4910-6 (ISBN)
Description
Mobilizing performance to amplify migrant domestic workers' creative expertise
Intimate inequalities exist where the embodied and the everyday rub up against transnational structures of power. Ella Parry-Davies conducted collaborative research with migrant domestic workers from the Philippines living in the UK and Lebanon, where migration is regulated by employer sponsorship systems, to explore how they negotiate the intimacy of the family home and the attendant inequalities of laboring within it. Intimate Inequalities: Performing Migrant Domestic Work brings these conditions into focus while articulating a methodological inquiry into the dynamics of collaborative performance research. Parry-Davies examines site-specific soundwalks, recorded and coedited with domestic workers, which steer the book between church choirs in Beirut and activist gatherings in London, and from urban performances in Lebanon's 2019 revolution to mutual aid organizing amid COVID-19 in the UK. Breaking with prevalent depictions of migrant domestic workers as voiceless and victimized, Intimate Inequalities mobilizes performance as both an analytic lens and a practical methodology, amplifying its subjects' expertise while reckoning with the intimate yet unequal dynamics of research itself.
Intimate inequalities exist where the embodied and the everyday rub up against transnational structures of power. Ella Parry-Davies conducted collaborative research with migrant domestic workers from the Philippines living in the UK and Lebanon, where migration is regulated by employer sponsorship systems, to explore how they negotiate the intimacy of the family home and the attendant inequalities of laboring within it. Intimate Inequalities: Performing Migrant Domestic Work brings these conditions into focus while articulating a methodological inquiry into the dynamics of collaborative performance research. Parry-Davies examines site-specific soundwalks, recorded and coedited with domestic workers, which steer the book between church choirs in Beirut and activist gatherings in London, and from urban performances in Lebanon's 2019 revolution to mutual aid organizing amid COVID-19 in the UK. Breaking with prevalent depictions of migrant domestic workers as voiceless and victimized, Intimate Inequalities mobilizes performance as both an analytic lens and a practical methodology, amplifying its subjects' expertise while reckoning with the intimate yet unequal dynamics of research itself.
Reviews / Votes
"An eloquent and engaged study of the lived worlds of domestic workers in Lebanon, refreshing in its use of performance-based research methods and acutely sensitive to detail. Parry-Davies offers a careful yet bold approach to performance ethnography." - Sruti Bala, University of AmsterdamMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Evanston
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
8 b&w halftones
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8101-4910-6 (9780810149106)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ella Parry-Davies is a lecturer in theater, performance, and critical theory at King's College London.
Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Names and Languages
Introduction: Unequal Intimacies in Performance Research
1. Glitching the Global Care Chain: Filipino Domestic Workers in the UK and Lebanon
2. Modern Heroes, Modern Slaves: Disrupting Dramaturgies of Identification
3. Workers of All Lands: Storied Space and Kinesthetic Performance
4. Coming Out Crip: Domestic Work and the Production of Disability
5. Performing Domestics: Calling a Place Home
Epilogue: Intimate (In)justice
Notes
Acknowledgments
Note on Names and Languages
Introduction: Unequal Intimacies in Performance Research
1. Glitching the Global Care Chain: Filipino Domestic Workers in the UK and Lebanon
2. Modern Heroes, Modern Slaves: Disrupting Dramaturgies of Identification
3. Workers of All Lands: Storied Space and Kinesthetic Performance
4. Coming Out Crip: Domestic Work and the Production of Disability
5. Performing Domestics: Calling a Place Home
Epilogue: Intimate (In)justice
Notes