FROM SERVANTS TO WORKERS, South African domestic workers and the democratic state

228pp., paperback, First SA Edition, Pietermaritzburg, 2010

First published in the USA in 2009.

"From Servants to Workers is a book of heartfelt ironies, as Ally systematically reveals how policy intended to help domestic workers in post-apartheid South Africa ended up stagnating their integration into the new democracy ..." Kelly Pike, Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

"From Servants to Workers is a readable and engaging volume containing multiple strong voices of women informants and union activists. Shireen Ally describes the measures that the post-apartheid South African state has taken to professionalize and formalize domestic service. Ally's trenchant analysis examines nation-building and the role of the state in crafting concepts of women's empowerment (or lack thereof) through wage labor and legal protections. This is a must-read book for feminist scholars interested in gender, social change, and the state." Michele Ruth Gamburd, Portland State University, author of The Kitchen Spoon's Handle: Transnationalism and Sri Lanka's migrant housemaids

Shireen Ally teaches in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand.