No Place Like Home: Organizing Home-Based Labor in the Era of Structural Adjustment (New Approaches in Sociology: Studies in Social Inequality, Social Changes, and Social Justice)

188 Pages·2006·1.26 MB·English

by  David E. Staples

New Approaches in Sociology
Studies in Social Inequality, Social
Change, and Social Justice
Edited by
Nancy A. Naples
University of Connecticut
A Routledge Series
New Approaches in Sociology
Studies in Social Inequality, Social Change, and Social Justice
Nancy A. Naples, General Editor
The Struggle over Gay, Lesbian, Praxis and Politics
and Bisexual Rights Knowledge Production in Social
Facing Off in Cincinnati Movements
Kimberly B. Dugan Janet M. Conway
Parenting for the State The Suppression of Dissent
An Ethnographic Analysis of Non- How the State and Mass Media Squelch
Profit Foster Care USAmerican Social Movements
Teresa Toguchi Swartz Jules Boykoff
Talking Back to Psychiatry Are We Thinking Straight?
The Psychiatric Consumer/Survivor/ The Politics of Straightness in a
Ex-Patient Movement Lesbian and Gay Social Movement
Linda J. Morrison Organization
Daniel K. Cortese
Contextualizing Homelessness
Critical Theory, Homelessness, “Rice Plus”
and Federal Policy Addressing the Widows and Economic Survival in
Homeless Rural Cambodia
Ken Kyle Susan Hagood Lee
Linking Activism “Between Worlds”
Ecology, Social Justice, and Education Deaf Women, Work, and Intersections
for Social Change of Gender and Ability
Morgan Gardner Cheryl G. Najarian
The Everyday Lives of Sex Workers If I Only Had a Brain
in the Netherlands Deconstructing Brain Injury
Katherine Gregory Mark Sherry
Striving and Surviving Minority within a Minority
A Daily Life Analysis of Honduran Black Francophone Immigrants and the
Transnational Families Dynamics of Power and Resistance
Leah Schmalzbauer Amal I. Madibbo
Unequal Partnerships Gender Trouble Makers
Beyond the Rhetoric of Philanthropic Education and Empowerment in Nepal
Collaboration Jennifer Rothchild
Ira Silver
No Place Like Home
Domestic Democracy Organizing Home-Based Labor in the
At Home in South Africa Era of Structural Adjustment
Jennifer Natalie Fish David E. Staples
No Place Like Home
Organizing Home-Based Labor in the
Era of Structural Adjustment
David E. Staples
Routledge
New York & London
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
270 Madison Avenue 2 Park Square
New York, NY 10016 Milton Park, Abingdon
Oxon OX14 4RN
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
ISBN 0-203-94422-4 Master e-book ISBN
International Standard Book Number‑10: 0‑415‑97797‑5 (Hardcover)
International Standard Book Number‑13: 978‑0‑415‑97797‑5 (Hardcover)
No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming,
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the
publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data
Staples, David E.
No place like home : organizing home‑based labor in the era of structural
adjustment / David E. Staples.
p. cm. ‑‑ (New approaches in sociology: studies in social inequality, social
change, and social justice)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0‑415‑97797‑5 (alk. paper)
1. Home‑based businesses. 2. Women‑‑Employment. 3. Minority
women‑‑Employment. 4. Sexual division of labor. 5. Small business. I. Title.
HD2333.S82 2006
331.4‑‑dc22 2006018039
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
and the Routledge Web site at
http://www.routledge‑ny.com

Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Invisible Threads of Homeworker Organizing 1
Chapter One
The Turbulent World of Home-Based Work 15
Chapter Two
‘No Place Like Home’: Marxist and Feminist Topographies of
House and Homework 43
Chapter Three
Homeworker Organizing: Child-Care Workers Under Welfare
Reform in the United States 67
Chapter Four
Child-Care Workers In and Against the State 89
Chapter Five
The Biopolitics of Homework 111
Chapter Six
Political Economy and the Unpredictable Politics of Women’s
Home-Based Work 125
Notes 143
v
vi Contents
Works Cited 157
Index 171
List of Figures
Fig. 1 Unity holds accountability session with Alexandria
DHS officials 109
Fig. 2 Unity members and supporters gather for February
2002 march 110
vii