Based on fieldwork carried out in the highlands of Madagascar, this paper explores the different, ‘hidden’ (but relatively shared) strategies that Malagasy domestic workers of different age and origin deploy to reshape and cope with the plural forms of exploitation, violence and social debasement associated with their occupation. In a context where domestic work is often characterized as a stigmatized and humiliating condition, where status distinctions related to past forms of slavery shape and inform current forms of domestic exploitation, and where labour unions have little impact, these 'informal', everyday strategies are crucial to partially ameliorate the current predicament of many domestic workers, to build possible paths of social mobility, and to forge new social links of mutual help. A focus on the life histories of domestic workers of different social backgrounds and on the changing relationships they established with their employers will shed light on how the reproduction of social hierarchies and dependancy is always a contested arena.
