Análise da condição social das empregadas domésticas na América Latina a partir de representações presentes nos contos Coro e Ali de María Fernanda Ampuero

Abstract

Departing from an understanding of literature as a space for the production and problematization of social representations, this article analyzes the condition of domestic workers in Latin America based on the representations found in the short stories Ali and Coro by the Ecuadorian writer María Fernanda Ampuero. Situated within a context marked by a colonial, slaveholding, and patriarchal legacy, the characters in these narratives reveal structures of exploitation shaped by the intersections of gender, race, and class. The domestic work they perform, historically associated with functions considered “natural” to femininity, falls predominantly upon poor and racialized women, contributing to its representation as undervalued, invisibilized, and disconnected from the notion of dignified labor. In this sense, the figure of the domestic worker emerges as a contemporary reconfiguration of the enslaved woman within the private space of the casa grande. Drawing on theoretical frameworks that combine perspectives from fields engaged with studies of slavery, literature, and colonialism, the analysis developed in this article is organized around four thematic axes: the character and nature attributed to domestic workers; working conditions; processes of valuation and invisibilization; and the construction of the exotic figure. In this way, the article demonstrates that the working conditions of domestic workers, both in the narratives analyzed and in everyday life, are intrinsically linked to the colonial formation of our societies, built upon enslaved labor. Accordingly, these reflections aim to contribute to the debate on the socioeconomic condition of Latin American subjects through our own modes of knowledge production.