Elisabeth Stubberud

PhD-project

An extra pair of hands. Ethnic minority women who work as au pairs and domestic workers in Norway

The project aims to explore the relationship between gender equality and global feminized migration. Gender equality is often seen as something ‘typically Norwegian', and is also something that is ‘exported' abroad. At the same time, the use of au pairs and domestic workers has increased rapidly since the beginning of the 2000s. It is mostly women who come to Norway to perform this work - for it is a question of work, despite the fact that the au pair system is referred to as cultural exchange in Norway. A question that arises in relation to this is the following: are we ‘selling' Norwegian equality abroad, whilst at the same time we are ‘buying' the practical equality at macro level from au pairs and domestic workers who sell their labor?

In my project I will interview au pairs and domestic workers about their employment in Norwegian families. I want to explore what kind of work they perform in Norway, how they perceive the work in relation to gender equality, what kind of beliefs they have about family and working in the private sphere, as well as what they have left behind in their home country and how they deal with this. I will also perform a contrasting study of au pairs in the UK, on ​​the basis that the legislation is different, and that there are some differences between Norway and the United Kingdom with respect to certain ideas about class, gender, ‘race'/ethnicity, and labor migration. I will argue that all these perspectives come into play, thus intersectionality is a key term for this project. 

The PhD project is part of the umbrella project Buying and Selling (gender) Equality: Feminized Migration and Gender Equality in Contemporary Norway, financed by NFR VAM 2011-2014

Project website: http://www.ntnu.no/kult/bsge

 

MA-thesis

"Vi kan ikke slutte nå" Et feministisk blikk på Anja Breiens Hustruer-trilogi (2010) Masteroppgave i tverrfaglige kulturstudier, Senter for kjønnsforskning, NTNU  http://www.ntnu.no/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=f42b67ea-70a9-4c35-9dad-c58e09b3fd13&groupId=149731