Made for Maids

Abstract

In this article, I am concerned with how female domestic workers use the mobile phone to expand employment opportunities in the shantytowns of urban Morocco. I examine how mobile telephony is a resource for human agency and action, not just a force for culture change. Second, I describe how mobile phone use has resulted in higher revenues by enlarging the circle of economic activity and by enabling supplementary informal income-generating possibilities. Third, I explore how the mobile phone has allowed them not only to generate more revenue but also to escape the stifling conditions of their workplace and renegotiate the gender politics of private-domestic space.