Abstract (eng)
The research work analyses the role of the state in the unequal distribution of care work within society and the shift in responsibility towards feminized and racialized people, based on the experiences of paid and unpaid Brazilian care workers in private households in São Paulo. The broader research context is the ongoing privatization of care work and welfare in Brazil in the last three decades, exacerbating historical social inequalities at the intersection of gender, race, and class. This research focuses on the government of Bolsonaro and the worsening of care injustices and increased social cuts in the period between 2018 and 2022. Applying a feminist state theory and intersectional lens, I explore how the state assigns the responsibility of care work in Brazilian society through its norms and policies towards feminized and racialized individuals. Firstly, the dissertation aims to analyse the state-produced intersectional power relations, that characterize care work. Secondly, the research examines the subject experiences of care workers in Brazilian private households and the effectiveness of symbolic violence in the self-attribution of care work. The empirical study is based on 22 interviews and four group discussions carried out with unpaid care workers such as parents, grandparents, other family members, and community leaders, and paid care workers like domestic helpers, caregivers, and nannies in private households in São Paulo between August 2021 and May 2022. The dissertation reveals on several levels an unchallenged care model of masculinist statehood, which, in its colonial institutionalization, is based on racism and binary genders, shaping the sexual division of labor unequally across society as a whole.