Betwixt and Between Au Pairs in the United States

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Mink, Joseph

Keywords

Au Pairs, Liminality, Migration, Domestic Labor

Area of Concentration

American Studies

Abstract

This thesis examines the au pair program in the United States. I argue that au pairs do not conform to a simple explanation or definition. Instead, the young women who participate in the program are better understood in terms of their liminality�a temporary phase that is part of a life-stage transformation similar to a rite of passage. I believe that this program is an illustration of a broader phenomenon of modern liminality which retains aspects of pre-industrial rites of passage but adds to those rites labor as a means of ordering this transformation. My findings show that while this labor is defended as being a positive addition to liminal experience (it provides some structure and added value for those who supervise the participants), it also has a potential to overwhelm the educational and cultural aspects of the experience reducing au pairs to a source of flexible, cheap, and obedient labor.The first chapter analyzes legal frameworks of the program both in Europe and in the United States. I demonstrate that within the legal framework the integration of the educational, cultural, and work components of the program produces an ambiguous legal identity. The second chapter looks at the marketing techniques of the au pair agencies in the United States and shows that the program is presented differently to the host parents and the foreign nationals. This presents potential problems as the families and the young women are given very different expectations of what it means to be an au pair. The third chapter uses aupairmom.com blog to examine how these different expectations are negotiated in the homes of the host families.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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