Bounded Transport, Mobility Justice, and Claims for Recognition Among Live‐in Care Workers

Petra Ezzeddine
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Petra Ezzeddine: Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Prague

Social Inclusion, 2026, vol. 14

Abstract: European long‐term care systems increasingly depend on regularly commuting live‐in care workers from Central and Eastern Europe, yet the mobility infrastructures sustaining this labour remain largely overlooked. This article examines bounded transport, an emic term used by Slovak live‐in care workers, brokerage agencies, and transport providers to describe agency‐organised door‐to‐door transport between workers’ homes and care recipients in Austria. It argues that bounded transport constitutes a critical yet invisible infrastructure of transnational care, organising labour mobility while redistributing temporal, financial, and bodily risks. Drawing on policy analysis, online ethnography, advocacy materials, and semi‐structured interviews, the article demonstrates how repeated fatal transport accidents transformed an ordinary feature of cross‐border care into a site of social contestation and collective action. By conceptualising mobility as an integral component of care rather than its external condition, the article contributes to debates on long‐term care governance and mobility justice by showing how live‐in care workers transform experiences of invisibility and vulnerability into claims for recognition and solidarity in the governance of European care regimes.

Keywords: Austria; collective action; European Union; live‐in care; mobility justice; recognition; Slovakia; transport (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:socinc:v14:y:2026:a:12191

DOI: 10.17645/si.12191

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