Cleaners and clients. A study on the contact between cleaners and clients.

Abstract: The domestic cleaning business in Sweden has been controversial over a period of time, raising issues of “black” employment, exploitation and harassment of the cleaners. After 2007 the connection of the cleaning businesses with the state through the tax office, is claimed to have bettered the working conditions for the workers, interpreted through statistics, although qualitative researches are still mentioning cases of mistreatment. All hitherto research known has been having the cleaners on focus. With this study, the effort is to shine light to the dispositions of the other unexplored side, that of the clients. Through the relatively mirrored qualitative research with two different groups, that of cleaners and clients, filtered with the theories of Intersectionality and Foucauldian power it is found that the nature of the contact is colored with stories of shame and embarrassment from both sides which affects up to a certain extent the nature of the relationship. It is also found that both groups trust each other on different levels, and that gender does not play a direct role to how the contact is shaped and developed.