Precarious Dependencies

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.