Coloniality of power and governmental precarity

The Brazilian State through the lenses of paid domestic work

Abstract

In the Brazilian context, paid domestic work is a total social fact, which omnipresence is barely discussed in theoretical and analytical terms, in special in its relationship with the Brazilian State. This article articulates the perspective of the coloniality of power to the one of governmental precarity, and it debates the role of paid domestic work, including its racial, class and gender aspects, from a theoretical perspective, informed by the decolonial and the black feminism critique, in its relationship with the Brazilian State. First, I will explore the relationship between the coloniality of power and the paid domestic work. Then, I will address the governmental precarity as the governmentality of the coloniality of power, as well as its consequences for the category, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, I will present the tension between the “progress towards the past”, considering that the social conditions have been made worsened, and the “return to the future”, thanks to mobilizations and emancipatory projects. Organized domestic workers have been fighting for decades to expand their rights and guarantee their dignity. In this way, they manage to open decolonial gaps in the social dynamics of the category overexploitation historically established in Brazil.