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Local and transnational care relations: relatedness and family practice among au pairs in Denmark
Author(s) -
DALGAS KARINA MÄRCHER,
OLWIG KAREN FOG
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
global networks
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.685
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1471-0374
pISSN - 1470-2266
DOI - 10.1111/glob.12074
Subject(s) - kinship , agency (philosophy) , ethnography , power (physics) , relation (database) , position (finance) , sociology , gender studies , genealogy , social science , anthropology , business , history , physics , finance , quantum mechanics , database , computer science
An increasing number of young women from the Global South have become au pairs in the Global North since the turn of the millennium. Through ethnographic analysis of three cases of au pairing in Denmark, involving Filipina and Caribbean women, this article discusses the nature of the local as well as transnational family relations in which these women are embedded as au pairs, and the opportunities and restraints that they present. We use anthropological theory to conceptualize family and kinship in terms of notions and practices of relatedness. This offers a useful framework for elucidating the different moral and contractual obligations and expectations associated with these varying family relations, the power asymmetries with which they are linked, and the agency that the au pairs display as they seek to position themselves in the most favourable way in relation to the multi‐directional ties in which they are involved.