ABSTRACT
While the organisation of domestic work as live-in work had largely disappeared from countries such as Britain and France by the end of the Second World War, several southern European countries retained this archaic organisational form into the post-war and contemporary period. Nevertheless, if we are to fully understand the significance of national political and social contexts, it is important not to conceal the internal differentiation within this southern European grouping. This chapter will examine the specificity of the Italian case prior to the migration of Black domestic workers. I suggest that the peculiar political circumstances of the immediate post-war period had important ramifications for the Italian domestic work sector.
