Domestic Work in Postcolonial Tanzania

Name: Domestic Work in Postcolonial Tanzania
Price: 59.99 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9781350277076

Gender, Learning and Unlearning

Paula Mählck (Stockholm University, Sweden)

$59.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Bloomsbury Academic
28 May 2026

Migration, immigration & emigration; Gender studies: women; Sociology: work & labour

This open access book examines the dynamics of learning domestic and care work within affluent expatriate households, characterized by significant economic privilege and, at times, diplomatic immunity.

Paula Mählck employs contemporary narratives from privileged female expatriate employers and Tanzanian domestic workers, colonial documents, analysis of the built space of expatriate households, as well as literary works and analytic autoethnography to investigate the continuities and changes in contemporary employment relations as compared to those during the British colonial era from the 1920s to the 1960s. While the relationship between women employers and domestic workers serves as the entrance of the investigation, the study delves deeper into postcolonial dynamics of learning and their interconnections with gender, race, and class. It emphasizes learning to cope as a dynamic process involving negotiation and movement, offering a nuanced perspective that transcends the victim/survivor dichotomy.

Moreover, the book highlights the subtlety of unlearning oppressive practices and relations, distinguishing them from formal affirmative actions. It underscores unlearning as a means for individuals and collectives to challenge established knowledge, perceptions, and practices, aiming to demonstrate the possibility of change. Through its multifaceted approach, which includes the historicization of alternative narratives, sociological analysis, theoretical discussions on social reproduction, and critical examinations of research methods for Western scholars researching non-Western contexts, this book provides valuable insights into the complexities of domestic work taking place in expatriate households in postcolonial Tanzania. It offers a thought-provoking examination of learning, learning to cope, and unlearning within the context of privilege and power.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Stockholm University.

By: Paula Mählck (Stockholm University Sweden)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 150mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 300g
ISBN: 9781350277076
ISBN 10: 135027707X
Pages: 204
Publication Date: 28 May 2026
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Paula Mählck is an Associate Professor of Sociology of Migration and Ethnicity at Stockholm University's Department of Education. She is also an affiliated researcher at the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO) at Linköping University.

Reviews for Domestic Work in Postcolonial Tanzania: Gender, Learning and Unlearning

""Convincingly arguing that colonial connected histories frame the organization of life/making, Paula Mählck provides us with a carefully thought out, beautifully written, interdisciplinary analysis of how domestic labour is hierarchically and unequally produced in Tanzanian households and its effects on the production of power relations. It would be of interest to everyone interested in how colonial histories embed our current social relations in the most intimate ways of life/making."" --Shirin M. Rai, SOAS, University of London, UK