Embodied intersectionality in paid migrant domestic and care work: theoretical developments and policy recommendations based on the study of Sri Lankan migrant workers in Naples, Italy

This project is about paid migrant domestic and care workers (PMDCWers), both women and men, who are people of colour from working-class, minority migrant communities that remain ‘invisible’ in the country where they work and live. Paid migrant domestic and care work (PMDCW) is a crucial labour sector dominated by migrant women and therefore researched predominantly from the perspective of women migrants with backgrounds in minority communities. International migration means employment in this sector is also becoming a possibility for migrant men, which is largely understudied. This project will fill this knowledge gap. It will focus on Sri Lankan women and men engaged in PMDCW, who represent a hidden and understudied though important community of longstanding migrant workers in Europe. While contributing to a non-mainstream perspective on PMDCW, this project will address the risk of stereotyping and oversimplifying the dynamic, diverse and vibrant lived experiences of PMDCWers under the broad labels: ‘minority migrant workers’, ‘low-end workers’, ‘ethnic minorities’ and ‘people of colour’. The project stresses that more research is needed to fully comprehend the spectrum of lived realities experienced by PMDCWers at the intersection of gender, class, race, nationality, religion, immigrant status and other forms of inequality, as well as the ways in which power, privilege and discrimination are mapped onto gendered–racialized migrant bodies. It will focus on the southern European city of Naples in Italy, with a significant tradition of PMDCW and home to a well-established community of Sri Lankan migrants, most of whom are PMDCWers. Given its interdisciplinary nature, the project will use mixed methods and methodological triangulation. It will thus probe the embodied intersectional experiences of Sri Lankan women and men living in the interstices of the Italian/Neapolitan PMDCW sector from more than one standpoint, enabling more meaningful conclusions to be drawn.