Echoes of oppression : a filmic analysis of African women in Lebanon’s Kafāla system

The kafāla system is an exploitative practice of sponsoring unskilled laborers and is most commonly found in Gulf countries and Lebanon. This practice became popular in Lebanon during the 1970s and remains a common practice in contemporary society. The Lebanese Ministry of Labour estimates that more than 100,000 migrant workers live and work within the country. Among this population, the majority of these workers are women, and a substantial number of these women are of African origin. Previous scholarship on the kafāla system has identified that African women face distinct challenges tied to their identity as Black women. Because of this, this thesis uses film as a site of analysis to explore variations in film representations of African women who work as domestic workers in Lebanon. This thesis also uses film to understand how filmmakers utilized their works to advance discourse on this subject. This thesis analyzes a collection of films produced from 2016 to 2020 that feature robust representations of African domestic workers in Lebanon. To argue the following: 1) when African domestic workers are allowed to represent themselves, they depict themselves in a more nuanced light which reflects their identity outside of their job, and 2) genre and film style influences the representation of African domestic workers, as it affects the message and final product filmmakers disseminate to the public. This work aims to raise further awareness of African women working in the kafāla system by utilizing a multidisciplinary approach that previous scholarship has not extensively explored.