Between the Law and daily: an ethnography surrounding paid housework
Domestic employment; PEC das domésticas; Labor rights; Social actors; Power dynamics.
The aim of this thesis is to analyze how the enactment of the “PEC das Domésticas” (Domestic Workers’ Constitutional Amendment) in 2013 transformed the daily lives of domestic workers in the context of Rio Grande do Norte. Accordingly, it reflects on paid domestic work in Brazil, exploring—through an anthropological lens—the cultural, moral, and political processes that shaped the historical construction of domestic workers’ labor rights in the country. The study adopts an intersectional framework, focusing on domestic work as a sector predominantly performed by racialized women from low-income backgrounds and with limited formal education. This reality is tied to the historical trajectory of domestic labor in Brazil, marked by its confinement to private households, invisibility, and societal devaluation. These factors directly contributed to the precarious nature of domestic work and, consequently, the delayed acquisition of labor rights—with domestic workers only being recognized as a formal labor category in 1972. The postponement of these rights stemmed from the actions of multiple social actors. Through ethnographic research, this thesis bridges the local level—examining strategies and agency mobilized by potiguar domestic workers, employers, and union leaders—with the macro-structural level of the state and its agents. This approach reveals the power dynamics that shape the political and moral recognition of labor rights."