Domestic labor as care and growth in western Kenya

Brown, Hannah

doi:10.1111/anhu.12304

Domestic labor as care and growth in western Kenya

Brown, Hannah

Authors

Professor Hannah Brown hannah.brown@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

Sociological and feminist explorations have tended to see domestic labor as feminized care work linked to the “private” realm of the home. This article explores domestic labor in western Kenya, describing such work as a reproductive and economic project that is carried out strategically through conditions of extreme precarity, as parts of efforts to ensure the growth of the home over time. Analyzing these practices through the lens of care unsettles some core dimensions of the conceptual frameworks commonly used to understand care, in particular assumed contiguities between domestic labor and care work. However, the ethnographic material presented here suggests that broadening our understandings of care can nonetheless provide a useful framework for understanding investments in domestic labor.

Citation

Brown, H. (2020). Domestic labor as care and growth in western Kenya. Anthropology and Humanism, 45(2), 245-254. https://doi.org/10.1111/anhu.12304

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Aug 10, 2020
Online Publication Date	Nov 22, 2020
Publication Date	2020
Deposit Date	Sep 3, 2020
Publicly Available Date	Nov 22, 2020
Journal	Anthropology and Humanism
Print ISSN	1559-9167
Publisher	Wiley
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	45
Issue	2
Pages	245-254
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/anhu.12304

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Advance online version © 2020 The Authors. Anthropology and Humanism published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Anthropological Association.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.