Signs of origin and profession: Peruvian domestic workers in Brasilia

The present article analyzes how does a group of Peruvian women, domestic workers, experience their migratory experience in Brasilia. The analysis is made in an interactional perspective – with an emphasis on the spheres of gender, ethnicity and class – trying to understand the social integration processes of those migrants in a city with unique urban and historical characteristics in Brazil and in that region. The in-depth interviews allow us to reflect on how they explain their integration with the city, the everyday life at work; that is, we analyze how do they produce their life space in migration. We are able to establish, in that condition of migration to work, a range of elements that compete for the production of that space: cultural and social origin, social gender relations inside and outside the family nucleus, among others. We identified a strong lack of honor and an absence of social esteem associated by the migrants themselves to the profession of domestic worker.

Peruvian Women; Brasilia. Domestic Work; Routine Interactions