Migrant domestic [female] spaces The migration of Nicaraguans reached its highest point during the decade between 1990 and 2000 as a consequence of their social, politic and economic situation and additionally to natural catastrophes. Searching for a better quality of life, hundreds of thousands fled their homes and are currently working and living in their southern-neighbour country, Costa Rica. From this working population, 94.4% of migrant domestic workers are female, 77,1% work in urban contexts and only 27% are salaried and contribute to social health schemes (Bonnie, 2010). A reasonable percentage to this amount has to be added, since migration status of majority of this population is irregular and therefore, not registered. Domestic workers refer to people engaged with labour performed in or for one or more households within an employment agreement (International Labour Organisation, ILO). Their work chronograms may differ between full or parttime and living in the house of the employer or have their own place of residency. The tasks performed by these workers include cleaning, cooking, washing, gardening and many have caring assignments such as children, elderly and/or people with disabilities.
After the Nicaraguans-migration pick in the 90s, middle to upper-class houses in Costa Rica adapted their original layout to host the ‘maid’s room’. Since most of the migrant domestic workers lived in long distances and were required to take care of the children of the family as well as to cook and other chores until late, their room was, and in some cases still is a necessity. How is this room embedded in the middle-class Costa Rican house? What is the spatial relation of it in relation to the social interaction of the rest of the house? Based on this scenario, in this blog post, I will argue what the spatial layout of the ‘maid room’ shows a reflection of the Costa Rican middle social culture in relation to migration, gender and socio-economical class. This argument will be reached with the methods of justified graphs of two middle-class houses in San Jose, Costa Rica with ‘maid rooms’ inhabited by migrant domestic females.
“Houses are not just assemblages of individual rooms but intricate patterns of organised space, governed by rules and conventions about the size and configuration of rooms, which domestic activities go together, how the interior should be decorated and furnished and what kinds of household object are appropriate in each setting, how family members relate to one another in different spaces, and how and where guests should be received and entertained in the home.” (Hanson, 2003)
How is the domestic worker’s room embedded in a middleclass Costa Rican house?
Figure 01. House 01 and 02 -Examples of a middle class Costa Rican house. Plans drawn by the author (2018)
Figure 01 shows the two houses that I'll be compare/serve as examples to illustrate the points of the thoughts/reflections behind this blog post. The first one is a two-story house and the second one is a one story house, both middle-class owned and located in San Jose, the capital city of Costa Rica. They were both designed to host a domestic worker’s room. Let’s compare and contrast the domestic room of these houses: As Hillier and Hanson (1984) introduced to space syntax, justified graphs are schemes that represent spaces as nodes and their connection to other rooms to determine the depth of each room in the house or building. Their representation is with
diagrams with nodes as circles and links with represent their relation. In order to understand these spatial relationships, justified graphs were used to identify how the domestic worker's room is located in the system and its relation with other spaces and therefore with their inhabitants, within the house. a. House 01 As Figure 02 shows, J/graph represents the first house as a system, in which there are two main entrances through the garage and the outer stairs. The first floor has a ring-like structure because the residential and office areas are connected through the WC, Kitchen and Terrace. The second floor, on the other hand, is a tree structure, that unravels from the hallway and obviously connects to the first floor through the main stairs.
Figure 02. House 01 first and second floor with nodes representing spaces and links to which rooms they are connected to.
The domestic room, the focus of this argument, as seen in Figure 02, located in between the washing room and the second living room in the upper left of the floor plan (represented in yellow) is the deepest room of the system. A non-floor located-like representation (J Graph) shows that the domestic room and its WC are the deepest rooms of the house (8 steps from the entrance).
Figure 03. House 01 Justified Graphs in diagram form, showing the depth of each set of spaces in the system.
What is the spatial relation of it in relation to the social interaction of the rest of the house? As Hanson (2005) argues, there is connection between the spatial and cultural relations of the inhabitants of a hose. In the
case of the Costa Rican middle class family, there is a clear spatial and social differentiation between the family and the domestic worker, in means of the access she/he has to the rooms in the house. To understand this better, the J graph was shifted in order to visualise how the house is accessed and used as a domestic worker. The overall structure of the house becomes even more sequential. Moreover, the 8-step depth becomes 10-11 steps for the domestic workers to get to the family rooms.
Figure 04. House 01 Justified Graphs in diagram form, showing the system from the domestic worker’s perspective and usage.
b. House 02
Figure 05. House 02 Justified Graphs in plan and diagram form of the spatial layout.
The second middle-class house has a tree-like structure that divides in two, as seen in Figure 05.The pre-dining and living room create a ring with the kitchen and terrace. From the living room, the TV Room creates a more separated branch of spaces: the family rooms and bathrooms. In relation to the domestic worker room, this one, as in the first house, is separated from the main rooms (kitchen and living room) with a service-directed room (the cellar and washing room in this case). Its position in the system is deep (6 steps from the entrance (garage)) but it is not the deepest room (the WC is) since the washing room and the main bathroom are also as deep.
The system seen from the domestic worker’s room is in depth similar but structurally more sequential, as the first house. There is a direct access and exit of the system with ramifications to different rooms: living, pre-dining and office rooms. Given the difference in size and one-two story buildings, the depth comparison is not sufficient, nevertheless, the similarities indicated, help to support the argument that the position and relations possible to these rooms is limited and restricted, spatially and culturally.
Figure 06. House 02 Justified Graphs in diagram form, showing the system from the domestic worker’s perspective and usage.
Is the spatial layout a reflection of the Costa Rican middle social culture towards immigration, gender and socio-economical class? A comparison between two houses is not a strong evidence of how Costa Rican middle-class houses function in relation to the domestic worker’s habitat embedded in them. However, they show hints about the location and spatial relations that do show how the social culture that hosts these immigrant females perceive and treat them. In the first case, House 01 showed a very deep system that leaves the service area in the far most area of the house. Also, spatially, this area is segregated from the rest of the house by the doors of the terrace. In a daily basis movement, the analysis of the system from the ‘maids’ perspective, shows how much more they need to walk in order to do their chores. There is an overall working and living separation between the domestic workers and the family. On the other hand, House 02, most of the observations of the first house are recurrent but the depth of both systems remain the same when shifted, although the spatial structure is more fluent in the entrance-guided scheme, whereas in the domestic worker’s perspective, the sequential scheme is slower. In conclusion, the middle-class Costa Rican house was modified in order to answer/react to the Nicaraguan immigration wave. Two examples that were analysed in this argument, suggest that the principle was to locate them in the deepest areas of the house and the justified graphs confirm this. Also, in relation to the method used in this analysis, J graphs are an efficient way to represent a spatial system and even continue with more complex analysis such as convex or axial analysis.
In relation to the questions that the argument wanted to answer, the domestic worker’s room is embedded in the less accessible (deeper) areas because the social culture is that service personal should not be present in their personal activities, but be there for dining and special occasions. Also, in relation to other spaces, they are in immediate contact with service rooms, due to their work assignment and less so with the family areas (the J graphs of the domestic room’s perspective confirm this). Finally, this comparison and representation of domestic spaces in middle-class houses suggest that a study on a specific space can mirror what the spatial culture connotes to a person and their work.
References: Hillier, B., & Hanson, J. (1984). The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hanson, J. (1999) Decoding Homes and Houses, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. https://failedarchitecture.com/the-5m2-maids-room-lebanons-racist-gendered-architecture/ https://www.socialprotection.org/gimi/gess/RessourcePDF.action;jsessionid=cc9KBAvObeC9eGpAvKtqgAa5v wAUfVh2htFagXAxymMduoPDQDio!-903242669?id=53106 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1191/030913298677526732 http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18434/domestic-workers-premilla-nadasen-interview