Julien Debonneville is a sociologist holding a PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Geneva. Over the past fifteen years, he has developed substantial experience in research and teaching at both national and international levels. His doctoral work examined processes of othering in the migration of Filipina domestic workers through an ethnographic study of recruitment, training, and deployment practices in the Philippines. His research has focused mainly on mobility and migration, gender inequality, and social policy. He is currently a senior research associate at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HETSL) and the University of Geneva, where he conducts several projects on the non-take-up of social benefits in Switzerland.

This communication examines the dynamics of distinction among migrant domestic workers within the globalized care economy. Drawing on ethnographic research of the transnational migration of Filipina domestic workers, it explores how gendered, racialized, and nationalized constructions of “skills“ shape labor hierarchies within employers’ households. By doing so, it sheds light on how structural inequalities are reproduced through everyday practices of distinction by employers and among migrant workers. At the same time, this communication highlights the making of a shared “imagined community“ among Filipina migrant domestic workers, which serves both as a resource for collective identification and as a mechanism for reinforcing social hierarchies with migrant workers of other nationalities. In conclusion, this communication shows that the private sphere constitutes a fundamentally political space in which social hierarchies are continuously produced, reproduced, and negotiated, while inviting a reconceptualization of the boundaries between the private and professional spheres in the global care economy.