This PhD-project is part of the D-A-CH-project “Decent Care Work? Transnational Home Care Arrangements”, a cooperation of Aranka Benazha, Helma Lutz, Iga Obrocka and Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck from Goethe University Frankfurt/Germany, Brigitte Aulenbacher, Michael Leiblfinger, and Veronika Prieler from Johannes Kepler University Linz/Austria and Karin Schwiter, Jennifer Steiner and Anahi Villalba from the University of Zurich/Switzerland; funded by the German Science Community (DFG) project no. LU 630/14-1, by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) project no. I 3145 G-29, and by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) project no. 170353. 

www.decent-care-work.net

I am a PhD candidate in the research group "geographies of labour, migration and gender" at the Department of Geography. Working on transnational care arrangements, I take a particular interest in questions of socio-spatial inequalities in globalized labour markets and in people’s struggles for labour rights and social participation.

In my PhD project, I focus on spaces of negotiation and contestation in the transnational live-in care arrangement. In Switzerland, live-in elderly care is becoming an increasingly common way to fill care gaps; it appears as a ready solution at a time when demographic change poses new challenges and former care arrangements between the generations and between genders are eroding. Tying in with this development, I investigate the recruitment of (mostly female) Eastern European care workers who are employed as so-called live-ins in private households. I explore the growing number of transnational home care arrangements to understand how these are being negotiated between the different actors involved. Asking how expectations of decent care and decent work are justified, legitimised or contested, I take a particular interest in the care workers’ role in these negotiation processes. Therefore, I ask for circumstances, challenges and possibilities of emergent forms of mobilisation and (self-)organisation, which politicize commodified care work and pressure for change.

Since 2017 // University of Zurich // PhD candidate in Economic Geography

2015 // University of Zurich // MSc in Political Geography

 

11/2020 // Swiss Geoscience Meeting // Zürich // "Contested Care: Organising and Negotiation Practices in Transnational Live-in Care Arrangements in Swiss Private Households"

09/2019 // Deutscher Kongress für Geographie // Kiel // "Die Care Economy als Perspektive für die Labour Geographies" mit Karin Schwiter

09/2019 // Deutscher Kongress für Geographie // Kiel // "Erfahrungen und Herausforderungen 'ethischer' Forschungspraxis in der Zusammenarbeit mit einem Netzwerk organisierter Care-Arbeiter*innen in Basel, Schweiz" mit Karin Schwiter

06/2019 // Global Labor Migration: Past and Present // Amsterdam // "Truly legal!? Justification Narratives of Transnational Live-in Care in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland" mit Aranka Benazha, Michael Leiblfinger und Veronika Prieler

06/2019 // Convegno Cantonale Badanti UNIA // Lugano // "Decent Care Work"

02/2019 // Care-Migration-Gender. Ambivalent Interdependencies. // Berlin // "Gute Sorge ohne gute Arbeit?" Fishbowl-Diskussion mit dem "Decent Care Work"-Projektteam

09/2018 // UNIA Frauenkonferenz // Neuchâtel // "Care Arbeit - Internationale Zusammenhänge"

07/2018 // Global Conference on Economic Geography // Cologne // "Labour, migration, and brokers" // Session co-chaired with Huey Shy Chau

05/2018 // kritnet16 // Göttingen // "Die Autonome Schule Zürich als gelebte urban citizenship. Alltägliche Kämpfe um Rechte und Teilhabe" mit Sarah Schilliger und Sharon Saameli

01/2018 // Neue Kulturgeographie // Freiburg im Breisgau // “Gute Sorgearbeit? Transnationale Home Care Arrangements. Charakter und Kontextbedingungen der live-in SeniorInnenbetreuung in der Schweiz“

Steiner, Jennifer (2021). Räume des Widerstands in der Live-in-Betreuung: Care- Arbeiter*innen organisieren sich. In: Aulenbacher, Brigitte; Lutz, Helma; Schwiter, Karin (eds.). Gute Sorge ohne gute Arbeit? Live-in Care in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa, p. 174-194. fulltext

Benazha, Aranka; Leiblfinger, Michael; Prieler, Veronika; Steiner, Jennifer (2021). Live-in-Care im Ländervergleich. In: Aulenbacher, Brigitte; Lutz, Helma; Schwiter, Karin (eds.). Gute Sorge ohne gute Arbeit? Live-in Care in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa, p. 20-45. fulltext

Schwiter, Karin; Steiner, Jennifer (2021). Live-in-Betreuer*innen als Angestellte – der Fall Schweiz. In: Aulenbacher, Brigitte; Lutz, Helma; Schwiter, Karin (eds.). Gute Sorge ohne gute Arbeit? Live-in Care in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa, p. 80-92. fulltext

Leiblfinger, Michael; Prieler, Veronika; Schwiter, Karin; Steiner, Jennifer; Benazha, Aranka; Lutz Helma (2020). Impact of COVID-19 Policy Responses on Live-In Care Workers in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Journal of Long-Term
Care, 3, p. 144-150. fulltext

Steiner, Jennifer (2020). 'Guter Lohn für gute Arbeit'? Legitimation und Kritik im Regulierungsprozess der Rund-um-die-Uhr-Betreuung betagter Menschen in Schweizer Privathaushalten. Swiss Journal of Sociology, 46(2): 281-303.

Steiner, Jennifer; Prieler, Veronika; Leiblfinger, Michael; Benazha, Aranka (2020). Truly legal!? Legal framing and legality narratives in live-in care in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. In: Katona, Noémi; Melegh, Attila (eds.). Towards a scarcity of care? Tensions and contradictions in transnational elderly care systems in central and eastern Europe. Budapest: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 69–91. fulltext

Schwiter, Karin; Steiner, Jennifer (2020). Geographies of Care Work: The Commodification of Care, Digital Care Futures and Alternative Caring Visions. Geography Compass, 14(12): 281-303. fulltext

Schilliger, Sarah; Schwiter, Karin; Steiner, Jennifer; Truong, Jasmine (2020). Grenzerfahrungen in der Betreuung von Betagten. Wochenzeitung WOZ, issue of 07.05.2020. fulltext

Leiblfinger, Michael; Prieler, Veronika; Schwiter, Karin; Steiner, Jennifer; Benazha, Aranka; Lutz, Helma (2020). Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on live-in care workers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In: Long Term Care Responses to Covid-19, blog hosted by the International Long-term Care Policy Network (ILPN) and Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). fulltext

Steiner, Jennifer; Prieler, Veronika; Leiblfinger, Michael; Benazha, Aranka (2019). 'Völlig legal'!? Rechtliche Rahmung und Legalitätsnarrative in der 24h-Betreuung in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 44(1):1-19. fulltext

Steiner, Jennifer; Schwiter, Karin; Anahi, Villalba (2019). Unsichtbare Care-Arbeit. Transnationale Sorgenketten für Schweizer Senior*innen. GeoAgenda, 1:14-17. fulltext

Schwiter, Karin; Steiner, Jennifer (2018). Stellungnahme zu Handen des Staatssekretariats für Wirtschaft SECO zum Modell-Normalarbeitsvertrag zur Ergänzung der kantonalen Normalarbeitsverträge für Arbeitnehmende im Haushaltsdienst. fulltext