In Unsettled Labors, Rachel H. Brown explores the overlooked labor of migrant workers in Israel’s eldercare industry. Brown argues that live-in eldercare in Palestine/Israel, which is primarily done by migrant workers, is an often invisible area where settler colonialism is reproduced culturally, economically, and biologically. Situating Israeli labor markets within a longer history of imperialism and dispossession of Palestinian land, Brown positions migrant eldercare within the resulting tangle of Israeli laws, policies, and social discourses. She draws from interviews with caretakers, public statements, court documents, and first-hand fieldwork to uncover the inherently contradictory nature of elder care work: the intimate presence of South and Southeast Asian workers in the home unsettles the idea of the Israeli home as an exclusively Jewish space. By paying close attention to the comparative racialization of migrant workers, Palestinians, asylum seekers, and Mizrahi and Ashkenazi settlers, Brown raises important questions of labor, social reproduction, displacement, and citizenship told through the stories of collective care provided by migrant workers in a settler colonial state.

Rachel H. Brown is Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

Acknowledgments  vii
Introduction  1
1. The Coloniality of Israel’s Reproductive Regime  31
2. Intimacy, Alienation, and Affective Automation  63
3. Reproducing the Settler Home  101
4. Household Resistance and National Love  139
5. Collective Care and the Politics of Visibility  176
Epilogue  210
Notes  219
Bibliography  259
Index  301