ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the tension between these two terms to argue that the badante are considered to be legitimate outsiders in Italy despite their irregularity. It notes that this legitimacy is precarious and is contingent on their continuing provision of emotional and intimate labour in the Italian home. The term intimate foreigner' embodies the tension between the figures of the badante and the clandestina. The intimate foreigner is a legitimate outsider in the nation; they provide their intimate and emotional labour to Italian families, as they shore up a fragile and limited welfare system. The intimate and emotional labour that they provide renders them less susceptible to the on-going processes of securitisation and criminalisation that refracted through the Security Package. Where irregular or unlawful entry is generally assumed in official and popular discourses to be the result of the problematic behaviour of migrants, in the case of domestic workers the administrative constraints embodied in the Italian legal system are emphasised.
