Reclaiming Agency through the Politics of the In_Visible Body: Illegalized Migration and Self-Representation of Women Domestic Workers in Switzerland

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Version: Final published version
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Serval ID
serval:BIB_DE0314135948
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Title
Reclaiming Agency through the Politics of the In_Visible Body: Illegalized Migration and Self-Representation of Women Domestic Workers in Switzerland
Journal
On_Culture – The Open Journal for the Study of Culture
Author(s)
Griffiths Maevia, Santos Rodriguez Victor
Publication state
Published
Issued date
06/07/2022
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
13
Language
english
Abstract
This article deepens our understanding of agency in the context of (in)securitized migration by engaging with the experiences of ‘undocumented’ women domestic workers in Switzerland. By linking the securitization framework with gaze theories and ontologies of the body, the following article accounts for migrants’ embodied and gendered experiences of (in)security and agency. In this perspective, the same bodies which are subjected to domination become tools of resistance enacted through a politics of in_visibilities. While these women mobilize strategies of invisibilization (camouflage, spatial practices of avoidance) to resist deportation, they simultaneously reappropriate self-representation by visibilizing their embodied presence within Switzerland’s visual field, creating a counter-gaze to their (in)securitization. This is manifest in the three cases of embodied plural performances studied through a methodology that combines interviews and filmmaking. While protesting, dancing and testifying illustrate how practices of bodily display can be used as collective rehumanizing tools, they also show how this mobilized visibility remains constrained by women’s (in)securitized conditions. Their agency becomes apparent in their ability to navigate this fine line, that is, the ways in which they creatively engage with the liminal spaces between the visible and the invisible to visually and politically inscribe their incarnated existence, overall destabilizing the securitized gaze.
Keywords
agency, visibility, invisibility, securitization of migration, bodies, gender, labor, undocumented domestic workers, Switzerland
Create date
11/09/2023 17:05
Last modification date
11/09/2023 17:06
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