Freedom and unfreedom in au pairing: Probing unfree labour from the perspective of social reproduction

How does affectivity align with the practice and experience of unfree labour? Recent studies have examined unfree labour as a political economic problem; however, the scholarship has largely overlooked the involvement of affect and social obligations in labour unfreedom, inadvertently constructing an imaginary of an insentient labouring body. I apply the case of au pairing to consider the affective dimensions of unfree labour embedded in the organisation of reproductive labour. Drawing on interviews with au pairs ( N = 26), I ask how the au pairs’ liminal position as a fictive family member and informal labourer relates to their experiences of labour unfreedom. Au pairs’ labour is appropriated and retained via the host parents’ deployment of emotional coercion, which simultaneously frames the labour as family membership. I argue that emotional abuse and coercion configure labour unfreedom, particularly for live-in reproductive labourers, who are bound to their labour by a sense of obligation and whose social-reproductive security depends on their commitment to caring labour. My findings embed labour in an affective-material framework and provide insights into why people remain at work experienced as unfree, even when there are no political or legal constraints involved.