Paula Mählck

This ethnographic research project deals with women’s labour migration from Kenya for work in domestic service in private households in the Gulf States. Migration from Kenya to the gulf states is well established and while exact numbers are unknown, it is currently estimated that there are up to 300 000 Kenyan citizens working in the Gulf States on temporary contracts (GAATW 2019). Conditions for women domestic workers are particularly harsh. Reports of physical, psychological and sexual violence are frequent (Ibid). To counter the abuses the Kenyan state has developed pre-departure training which includes information on workers’ rights, intercultural competence and technical knowhow. Pre-departure training is now made mandatory and integral to the labour migration process. Using policy analysis, interviews and observations, this project will critically map and analyse the various stakeholders (Kenyan state, NGO’s, recruitment firms, training centres, women workers and women workers’ families) and how benefits, risks and costs are managed and negotiated by the different stakeholders.

The aim is to investigate the narratives of employment relations between expatriate Scandinavian women
employers and Tanzanian women domestic workers, and how this influences their social identity models and
communication around work. An important part of the aim is also to investigate the changes and continuities
between contemporary employment relations articulated by the women involved and the employment relations
that were practiced during the system of indentured labor in East Africa during the period 1820s - 1940s. The
system was introduced by colonial settlers after slavery was