Precarious Dependencies

This examination of female domestic service concentrates on the mistress-servant relationship across a 50-year period in Bolivia, in order to understand why a dominant class of women hires others to carry out domestic duties. Within this broader context, the author explores female domestic service through oral histories with mistresses and servants, court cases and interviews. She explores how gender and ethnicity are mediated by class position and historical experience, and how changing power relations have both sustained and altered social distinctions.