8. Migrant Women’s Collectivism: The Diaspora and Community Organising

Despite domestic workers fighting for better working conditions for more than a century, this has not changed the informal and precarious nature of domestic jobs in many countries. In this chapter we discuss domestic workers’ mobilisation including communities of coping and social movement models. By accepting that this is not easy, our findings also point out obstacles such as patriarchal relations where kinsmen wield their gender power to prevent women’s participation, and religious codes can preclude women’s solidarity. It also discusses the problems which include solidarities based on diaspora, identity, race and ethnicity, politics and religion, which become exclusive, ignoring or shutting out gender or class-based organising.