ABSTRACT
My fieldwork officially started in 2000 and ended in 2003. It comprised two time frames (2000–2001 and 2002–2003) of information-gathering and intensive interviewing, prior to and after my DPhil registration. These time frames are in no way illustrative of ‘a linear model with a beginning, a middle and an end’ (Burgess 1984: 31). As I said, my fieldwork ‘officially’ ended in 2003. But has it really ended and does it ever? As I am writing these words, I receive a phone call from a friend who seemed upset. When I asked her what the matter was, she replied: ‘I am going to kill her’. She was talking about her newly arrived housemaid, who was not properly following orders. She went on, explaining to me how difficult it was to ‘train’ housemaids. In this and in many other ways, I often had access to unsolicited information that was particularly insightful due, in part, to its spontaneous nature. But this was only a limited part of the ‘free’ access to information and knowledge I gathered. This ‘invisible’ community was, actually, highly visible. I saw housemaids wherever I went, on the beach sweating in the heat (they are not allowed to swim in beach resorts in Lebanon), on the streets, in restaurants (Lebanese employers sometimes take their housemaids with them when they eat out on Sundays), on balconies (for those who were hardly allowed out) or at a friend’s house drinking coffee served by the Sri Lankan housemaid. I also overheard people talking about their housemaids. Housemaids, in fact, have become one of the ‘salon subjects’ in Lebanon. Here are two examples from my field diary.
