Meryl Altman

Policy Gaps and Theory Gaps: Women And Migrant Domestic Labor

Abstract This contribution brings a feminist intersectionalities approach to bear on the so-called policy gap – when governments act in ways that undermine their own stated goals – with respect especially to immigration, but also to labor and family policy. Analyzing the increasingly large worldwide flows of women to do paid domestic work, the authors argue that policy gaps in receiving countries both feed on and are fed by inequalities of gender, race, class, and nationality, in ways that appear to pit some groups of women against others, but that ultimately disadvantage everyone. This study provides a feminist critique of the mainstream human capital theory explanation of migration, identifies several gaps within current feminist theory, and proposes some improved approaches.

Was Surrealism a Humanism? The Case of Michel Leiris

This essay investigates some paradoxes in the career of surrealist and ethnographer Michel Leiris. Looking at how objects, animals, and people of color appear throughout his work, the author raises some cautions about current critical enthusiasm about the posthuman under the sign of the animal turn.