Table of Contents

Introduction: Decolonizing Domestic Service: Introducing a New Agenda Victoria K. Haskins and Claire Lowrie 1. An Historical Perspective: Colonial Continuities in the Global Geography of Domestic Service B. W. Higman Part I: Anxieties and Intimacies Victoria K. Haskins and Claire Lowrie 2. Domesti-city: Colonial Anxieties and Postcolonial Fantasies in the Figure of the Maid Shireen Ally 3. Settling In, From Within: Anglo-Indian ‘Lady Helps’ in 1920s New Zealand Jane McCabe 4. ‘Ah Look Afta De Child Like Is Mine’: Discourses of Mothering in Jamaican Domestic Service, 1920-1970 Michele A. Johnson 5. ‘Always a Good Demand’: Aboriginal Child Domestic Servants in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Australia Shirleene Robinson 6. Maids’ Talk: Linguistic Containment and Mobility for Sri Lankan Housemaids in Lebanon Fida Bizri 7. Foreign Domestic Workers in Singapore: Historical and Contemporary Reflections on the Colonial Politics of Intimacy Maria Platt Part II: Domination and Resistance Victoria K. Haskins and Claire Lowrie 8. ‘Strictly Legal Means’: Assault, Abuse and the Limits of Acceptable Behaviour in the Servant/Employer Relationship in Metropole and Colony 1850-1890 Fae Dussart 9. Imperial Legacies and Neoliberal Realities: Domestic Worker Organizing in Postcolonial New York City Alana Lee Glaser 10. Tactics of Survival: Images of Aboriginal Women and Domestic Service Michael Aird 11. ‘I Would Like the Girls at Home’: Domestic Labor and the Age of Discharge at Canadian Indian Residential Schools Mary Jane Logan McCallum 12. White Women and Chinese ‘Houseboys’: Domestic Politics in Singapore and Darwin from the 1910s to the 1930s Claire Lowrie Part III: Legacies and Dreams Victoria K. Haskins and Claire Lowrie 13. Baby Halder’s A Life Less Ordinary: A Transition from India’s Colonial Past? Swapna M. Banerjee 14. From Our Own Backyard?: Understanding UK Au Pair Policy as Colonial Legacy and Neo-Colonial Dream Rosie Cox 15. Taking Colonialism Home: Cook Island ‘Housegirls’ in New Zealand, 1939-1948 Charlotte Macdonald 16. British Caribbean Women Migrants and Domestic Service in Latin America, 1850-1950: Race, Gender and Colonial Legacies Nicola Foote 17. Contemporary Balinese Cruise Ship Workers, Passengers and Employers: Colonial Patterns of Domestic Service Pamela Nilan, Luh Putu Artini and Steven Threadgold 18. A Contemporary Perspective: ‘Picking the Fruit from the Tree’: From Colonial Legacy to Global Protections in Transnational Domestic Worker Activism Jennifer N. Fish Conclusion: Agency, Representation, and Subalternity: Some Concluding Thoughts Victoria K. Haskins and Claire Lowrie

About the Author

Victoria K. Haskins is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Newcastle, Australia.





Claire Lowrie is a Lecturer in History at the University of Wollongong, Australia.