https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1642-1953
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ABSTRACT
Ireland has the fastest ageing population in Europe, creating significant challenges for health and caring services in the state. Ireland depends on migrant workers, documented and undocumented to meet this growing need. Oona Frawley’s 2014 novel Flight tells the story of one of these workers. In the novel, Sandrine, from Zimbabwe, gets a job as a live-in carer for the ageing Clare and Tom, working 24/7 with just one afternoon off. Set just before the 2004 Citizenship Referendum, the story is complicated by Sandrine’s pregnancy. This article details Sandrine’s precarious labour and citizenship, impacted by the biopolitical legislation. It also foregrounds the vulnerability of the ageing population in Ireland through reliance on unregulated care solutions. Flight represents how a range of vulnerable groups in Irish society are impacted by a precarious and invisible labour market that both fails to address the needs of the worker and the ageing population.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. MRCI, “Migrant Workers in the Home Care Sector – MRCI.”
2. Federici, ““We Have Seen Other Countries and Have Another Culture,” 83.
3. Butler, “Precarious Life, Vulnerability, and the Ethics of Cohabitation,” 136.
4. Lentin and McVeigh, After Optimism? Ireland, Racism and Globalisation, 100.
5. Puar et al., “Precarity Talk: A Virtual Roundtable,” 165.
6. Lentin, “Ireland: Racial State and Crisis Racism,” 110.
7. Federici, ‘““We Have Seen Other Countries,” 9.
8. Ferguson, “Changing Approaches to Migration,” 398.
9. Ferguson, 398.
10. Ferguson, 398.
11. Frawley, Flight, 11. Further references will be given parenthetically.
12. Lanigan, “Non-Nationalizing the Story of Ireland,” 238.
13. Deckard and Shapiro, World Literature, Neoliberalism, 9.
14. Yuval-Davis, Gender & Nation, 26.
15. Altuna-García de Salazar, “Ageing and Migrant Home Care in Ireland.”
16. Ferguson, “Changing Approaches to Migration,” 405.
17. Lentin, “Ireland: Racial State and Crisis Racism,” 622.
18. Luibhéid, “Sexual Regimes and Migration Controls,” 74.
19. Chattopadhyay, “Immigration and Contemporary Irish Literature.”
20. Buchanan, “Living at the End of the Irish Century,” 300.
21. Lentin and McVeigh, After Optimism? Ireland, Racism and Globalisation, 28.
22. Lentin, “Ireland: Racial State and Crisis Racism,” 611.
23. Balibar, We, the People of Europe?
24. Lentin and McVeigh, After Optimism? Ireland, Racism and Globalisation, 28.
25. Lentin and McVeigh, 28.
26. Garner, “Babies, Bodies and Entitlement,” 442.
27. Frawley, “Tramp Press Launch Title: Flight by Oona Frawley – Writing.Ie.”
28. Lanigan, “Non-Nationalizing the Story of Ireland,” 234.
29. United Nations, “Ageing | United Nations”.
30. United Nations.
31. United Nations.
32. TILDA, “Background – The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) - Trinity College Dublin.”
33. Beesley, “Ageing Ireland: ‘I Don’t Want to Go to a Residential Home… The Idea Abhors Me’ – The Irish Times.”
34. ““Ireland – A Great Place to Grow Old? | Social Justice Ireland.”
35. “JOINT COMMITTEE ON HEALTH Report on the Provision of Homecare Services.”
36. Ibid.
37. MRCI, “Migrant Workers in the Home Care Sector – MRCI.”
38. Gutirrez Rodrguez, Migration, Domestic Work and Affect.
39. Arlie Russell, “Arlie Russell Hochschild | S&F Online | Valuing Domestic Work.”
40. Dumitru, ‘“Care Drain,” 95.
41. “Domestic Workers (Domestic Workers).”
42. “Who Are Domestic Workers (Domestic Workers).”
43. Lutz, “Gender in the Migratory Process,” 1651.
44. Ibid., 1651.
45. Ibid., 1652.
46. Ibid., 1652.
47. Mitropoulos, “Precari-Us? |Transversal Texts.”
48. Federici, ““We Have Seen Other Countries and Have Another Culture,” 16.
49. Federici, 19.
50. Lentin and McVeigh, After Optimism?, 30.
51. “Foreigner Definition and Meaning | Collins English Dictionary.”
52. Frase, “The Precariat: A Class or a Condition?” 12.
53. Frase, 12.
54. Connell, Precarious Labour and the Contemporary Novel, 4.
55. Mulhall, “Arrivals: Inward Migration and Irish Literature,” 186.
56. Lutz, “Gender in the Migratory Process,” 1647.
57. Berlant, Cruel Optimism, 179.
58. Zeleza, “Contemporary African Migrations in a Global Context,” 10.
59. O’Neill and Schrage-Fruh, “Surplus to Requirements?” 435.
60. Altuna-García de Salazar, “Ageing and Migrant Home Care in Ireland,” 859.
61. Altuna-García de Salazar, 871.
62. Schrage-Früh, “Reimagining the Fourth Age,” 78.
63. Gilleard and Higgs, “Precarity and the Assumption of Rising Insecurity in Later Life: A Critique.”
64. Grenier, Lloyd, and Phillipson, “Precarity in Late Life: Rethinking Dementia as a ‘Frailed’ Old Age.”
65. Frawley, “Tramp Press Launch Title: Flight by Oona Frawley – Writing.Ie,” 216.
66. Puar et al., “Precarity Talk: A Virtual Roundtable,” 148.
67. Puar et al., 148.
68. Mulhall, “Arrivals: Inward Migration and Irish Literature,” 187.
69. Federici, “We Have Seen Other Countries and Have Another Culture,” 10.
70. Federici, 11.
71. Federici, 16.
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