Precarious Dependencies - Softcover

Gill, Lesley

3.86

7 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 023109647X ISBN 13: 9780231096478

Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr, 1994

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Precarious Dependencies asks how one should understand the general subordination of women, when some women (usually from the dominant class, race, or ethnic group) hire others to carry out the domestic duties that are typically assigned to women? To answer this, Lesley Gill examines the mistress-servant relationship in Bolivia over the sixty-year period between 1930 and 1990 in which the country experienced war, a major revolution, and more recently, a prolonged economic crisis. Within this broader context, Gill explores female domestic service through oral histories with mistressess and servants, court cases, and fieldwork interviews. The author also explores how gender and ethnicity are mediated by class position and historical experience and how changing power relations have sustained and altered social, cultural, and ethnic distinctions.

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About the Author:

Leslie Gill is the author of Peasants, Entrepreneurs, and Social Change: Frontier Development in Lowland Bolivia, which received a Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award.

Review:

Addresses the issue of inequalities between women that are rooted in, but not completely delineated by, class and ethnicity. . . . This book develops a deeply nuanced and insightful understanding of the oppression of women. -- Gerald Sider City University of New York

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