Introduction: Language and Domestic Work in Globally South Contexts
Anna Kaiper-Marquez & Sinfree Makoni
Within this special issue, we seek to explore the intersections of economic (im)mobility, race and ethnicity, and gender, while particularly focusing on the power dynamics that language knowledge and use play in exacerbating these dynamics. Moreover, we explore how these power dynamics are particularly complex in multilingual spaces where the languages of the home, the languages of the care/domestic worker, and the languages of power within the country can often be at odds with one another. For example, while there is a substantial body of scholarship dealing with issues of home language use, very little explores the potential effects of the roles of domestic workers specifically, and caregivers more generally, in shaping the socio-linguistic and affective dimensions of the home or the household. Finally, we locate this work in decolonial frameworks while also drawing on southern theories to frame the contexts that these chapters are situated in and the people they are about.