Paper short abstract:

Recently, many workers from Bulgaria have been employed as "essential workers" abroad. However, some of them have decided to return to Bulgaria during the pandemic. This paper aims to explore how the pandemic has affected their attitudes towards migration, work, and care from a feminist perspective.

Paper long abstract:

Does the Covid-19 pandemic have effects on attitudes of Bulgarian migrant workers towards mobility, work, and care? Since the early 2000s, particularly after Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, many workers from Bulgaria have been employed in construction, seasonal agriculture, and care work outside the country. However, between 2020 and 2023, many still worked abroad as "essential workers", while some decided to return to Bulgaria. In the rural areas in Northern Bulgaria, where I have conducted long-standing fieldwork, a part of migrant workers, including a few women who had worked abroad as live-in caregivers, have returned home, and resumed their lives.

How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected their decision to continue working abroad, or to return home? Based on interviews with Bulgarian (ex-)migrant workers who have over a decade of experience in working outside the country as "essential workers", such as caregivers, seasonal agricultural workers, or truck drivers, this paper aims to reveal how the pandemic has impacted the lives of these various types of "essential workers" and to explore whether it has altered their attitudes towards migration, work, and care. Furthermore, I would like to discuss the politicization of the debate on migration and reproduction in Bulgaria, as well as the (im-)mobilities and care among Bulgarian (ex-)migrant workers through the lens of feminist approaches.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the situation of India's community care workers- the Anganwadi and ASHA workers, between essential care work and expendable 'volunteership'. It explores their working lives in general and during crises, to comment on the political economy of state regulated reproductive labour.

Paper long abstract:

Indian state recruits women from local communities to act as community care 'volunteers', particularly pertaining to health outcomes for women and children. Two primary workers serving the stated welfare cause of the state are Anganwadi (community creche-cum-preschool) workers and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs). Imagined as caregivers in voluntary service of the community, they are compensated in honoraria and are not subject to the social security entitlements of a government employee. During the covid-19 pandemic, their work was listed as essential and their duties expanded to serve as 'corona warriors'. This listing was also used to quash any collective action of workers against their general exploitative working conditions turned hazardous during the pandemic.

These framings of their work put the worker in an ambivalent position between essentiality and expendability. In order to explicate this peculiar position, this paper seeks to answer two fundamental questions- 1. What are the conditions of work for Anganwadi workers and ASHAs during and beyond the pandemic that contribute to their ambivalent positioning?; and 2. How can we understand state-operated community care schemes exclusively employing women, from a political economy perspective?

Drawing on an ethnography with the workers and related stakeholders over a period of nine months, the paper embeds itself in a framework of social reproduction to analyse this form of labour, particularly as the state makes use of it to respond to a crisis.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses precarious work in a (post-)segregationist, neoliberal city through the experiences of black women employed as mobile Community Healthcare Workers (CHWs) in Khayelitsha, the biggest township in Cape Town, South Africa, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses the concept of precarious work in a (post-)segregationist, neoliberal city through the experiences of Community Healthcare Workers (CHWs) in Khayelitsha, the biggest township in Cape Town, South Africa, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Playing a pivotal role in South Africa’s primary healthcare approach by mediating national health policies with the knowledge of local realities, CHWs were part of the country’s strategy to contain the pandemic and were widely deployed, delivering medicines to chronically ill patients, educating citizens on how to prevent an infection with SARS-CoV-2, and aiding health personnel in public clinics. CHWs, most of whom are black women living in townships – poor, apartheid-era areas designated to non-Whites – usually receive low wages and do not enjoy the rights and benefits afforded to other healthcare workers. The COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated their already precarious working situation. The mobility conferred to them during the strict lockdown regime in South Africa left them exposed to high-risk situations, from contracting SARS-CoV-2 to being victims of violence when walking the empty streets in Khayelitsha to reach their patients. Addressing the pandemic crisis through a spatial point of view in the context of a society still struggling with historical (gender, racial, land…) injustices, I employ feminist perspectives on work and show how one of South Africa’s key approaches to fighting the pandemic relied on the precarious working conditions of black women. The analysis is supported by ethnographic material from fieldwork conducted in Khayelitsha and interviews with CHWs between 2022 and 2023.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyzes how two grassroots unions of female migrant workers in Barcelona reconfigure wage-centered labor struggles as care work. It argues that the rise of feminist-syndicalism stems from the feminist strike movement and the acknowledgment of care work as essential during the pandemic.

Paper long abstract:

The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed once more how crisis-prone capitalist arrangements are. This paper explores the efforts of reconfiguring wage-centered labor struggles around reproductive work through two grassroots unions in post-pandemic Barcelona. Using feminist ethnography, it analyzes the entanglements between emotional empowerment and political activism in the union of household workers’ Sindihogar and the hotel cleaner’s union Las Kellys Unión. These unions operate on the basis of a politics of mutual affection (Fulladosa Leal 2015:83). This politics is central to their unionizing, as not only the bodies but also the vital energy of precarious workers is exploited (Filigrana 2021). The worker’s daily exposure to existential insecurities results in exhaustion, reinforces the reduction of their life opportunities, and turns vital energies into a socially unequally distributed resource that undermines the practical ability to shape their future. In contrast, the politics of reciprocal care provides a safe space for exchanging experiences of oppression and experimenting with new political subjectivities and horizons of possibility (Fulladosa Leal 2015:76).

The paper argues that the rise of feminist-syndicalist organizing efforts in Spain was shaped by a confluence between two major events, which contributed to positioning female migrant workers as the revolutionary subjects of neoliberal capitalism (Segato 2019). Initially, the influential feminist strike movement politized the devaluation of care work, fostering renewed alliances between feminist and trade unionist activists (Gago und Cavallero 2022). Secondly, the feminist politicization of the care crisis gained momentum during the global pandemic, particularly with the acknowledgement of care workers as essential workers.

Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the diverse experiences of Brazilian cleaners in London and the combined precarities that characterise the domestic work sector before, during and after the Covid-19 outbreak. Within this debate, it highlights women's agency, strategies and digital media practices in the period.

Paper long abstract:

Following the Covid-19 outbreak, some categories of workers gained temporary visibility and national praise in the UK, particularly in the health sector. Others, however, occupied a more ambiguous position as workers who could neither follow the “stay home” guidance nor gained the headlines for their services. Brazilian migrants in London are heavily represented in two of these sectors through which many households outsource their social reproduction needs: house cleaning and food delivery. This paper discusses the overlooked position of migrant cleaners in the pandemic as what Pandey, Parreñas and Sabio (2021) have called expendable essential workers, whose work has been deemed essential but not the workers themselves. Mobility disruptions and new hygiene standards created a period of high demand for migrant cleaners in London and exposed the essential character of domestic work as care work. At the same time, insecure migration statuses, job instability, undervaluation and employers’ mixed attitudes are examples of long-standing issues that added to the risk of working behind closed doors. Drawing from ethnographic research and interviews carried out between 2020 and 2022, I explore Brazilian cleaners’ diverse experiences during this period and what these may reveal about the combined precarities that characterise the sector before, during and after the pandemic outbreak. Within this discussion, I highlight my interlocutors’ agency and practices that spanned across online and offline spaces, from the creation of ingenuous solidarity networks on social media to the strategic combination of different types of informal work, including in the male-dominated sector of delivery riding.

Paper short abstract:

As Romania becomes a destination country for south-east Asian migrants, it becomes crucial to explore the interplay between healthcare provision and mobility regimes. This research delves into frictions arising between the Romanian healthcare system and migrants’ health perspectives and practices.

Paper long abstract:

In today's increasingly interconnected world, health care and the administrative systems that underpin it, are becoming increasingly transnational (Dilger, Kane, & Langwick, 2012; Zeldes, et al., 2018). In a (post)pandemic world, the health disparities raised by this fundamental change on the global health arena outline more than before the interplay between mobility regimes and healthcare provision.

Traditionally a source country, in recent years Romania emerged as destination country for south-east Asian migrants. Originating from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam or the Philippines, these people fill in the immense gap left by Romanian emigration to Western Europe, increasingly becoming a vital part of the “essential” workforce. As it unfolds, this incipient wave of migration brings with it crucial concerns for how new countries of emigration should prepare and adapt their healthcare systems, especially when already precarious such as the one in Romania (Stan & Erne, 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that South-East Asian migrants were among the most vulnerable and challenged social groups living in Romania during that period (Roșca, 2021). Yet too little is known about their healthcare challenges during and, more importantly, after this period. In this paper, I use an intersectional approach to address these migrants’ understanding of health, care, and healing and how their medical practices intersect with the Romanian healthcare infrastructure. I explore the experiences of South-East Asian women working in the cleaning services trying to understand their migratory experiences, uncovering the underlying health im/mobilities.

Paper short abstract:

The construction of hierarchies of essentiality is driven by practices of social (de)valuation of labour. I analyze the social (de)valuation of four different groups of urban non-healthcare essential workers, namely public transport drivers, childcare workers, shop assistants, and cleaning staff.

Paper long abstract:

Essentiality is a value-laden and contested category, as it is constructed through discourses and negotiations between political agendas and economic and social priorities. The construction of categories and hierarchies of essentiality is often driven by practices of social (de)valuation of labour that occur at different scales and are enacted by multiple actors. These hierarchies are reinforced in emergency situations, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. During the pandemic in Switzerland, essential healthcare workers received much public attention, such as coordinated clapping from balconies and extensive media coverage. In contrast, essential non-healthcare workers, who are often involved in care and maintenance work, became the “unsung” heroes of the pandemic.

In this paper, I use an intersectional approach to examine the (lack of) lasting effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on urban essential workers in Switzerland pursuing three aims: First, based on a media review, I investigate how different groups of urban essential workers are (de)valued differently in Swiss newspaper articles. Second, based on interviews with public transport drivers, childcare workers, shop assistants, and cleaning staff in the city of Zurich, I analyze the extent to which essential workers feel recognized and valued by the general public. Third, I show how the four groups of urban essential workers (differently) perceive the short and long term effects of the pandemic.