Languages of affection and rationality: household workers? strategies before the Tribunal of Domestic Work (Buenos Aires, 1956-2013)

CANEVARO, SANTIAGO Y INÉS PÉREZ

International Labor and Working-Class History

Cambridge University Press

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2015

0147-5479

Based on a close reading of more than 800 case records, this article analyzes household workers? discursive strategies before the Tribunal of Domestic Work (TDW) between 1956 and 2013. The TDW is an institution created in 1956 to arbitrate labor relations within domestic service in Buenos Aires. In this article we show that workers? strategies use alternatively a language of rationality and labor relations, on the one hand, and of affection and family-like bonds, on the other. The overlap of languages of rationality and affection persisted during the entire period under analysis. However, it did not have the same significance over time. Specific articulations of affect or rationality legitimated workers? rights at different moments in relation to particular labor relations. Despite the particularities of any individual cases, patterns of argument emerged, connected to changes in the world of labor and transformations in the dynamics of domestic service.