Bringing gender into migration studies

Transcription

1 Bringing gender into migration studies Drs. Amal Miri Centre for Research on Culture and Gender (CRCG - Ugent) Interculturalism, Migration and Minorities Research Centre (IMMRC - KUL) Amal.miri@ugent.be

2 Outline State of the art of gender and migration studies (1960 < ) Feminization of migration / Towards a more complex gender analysis and theory Significant developments in research on gender and migration key contributions within different subfields (example care chain ) critical theory future challenges

3 Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994): Gender is not simply a variable to be measured, but a set of social relations that organize immigration patterns. The task, then, is not simply to document or highlight the presence of undocumented women who have settled in the United States, or to ask the same questions of immigrant women that are asked of immigrant men, but to begin with an examination of how gender relations facilitate or constrain both women s and men s immigration and settlement

4 State of the art 1960s and early 1970s 1970s and 1980s 1980s and 1990s More recent studies

5 Gender and migration studies 1960s and early 1970s "migrants and their families" was a code for "male migrants and their wives and children" near-invisibility of women as migrants presumed passivity in the migration process assumed place in the home no attention to gender differences studied only men and generalized

6 Gender and migration studies 1970s and 1980s improvement in including women but no dramatic shift in thinking did migration "modernize" women? >< post-modern feminist migration scholars "add women, mix and stir" or "gender as a variable" approach did not question the underlying models used for explanation differences between men and women = as reflections of different sex roles migration was seen as the outcome of individual decisions => gendered responsibilities (!)

7 Gender and migration studies 1980s and 1990s Gender as a constitutive element Gender is not immutable but also changes and, in this sense, is both socially constructed and reconstructed through time Theory of intersectionality (K. Crenshaw) embedded in social relations shaped by race ethnicity, class, sexuality, and nationality

8 Gender and migration studies More recent studies Growing attention to gendered institutions and gender relations (Connell, 1987/2002) more research focusing on men and masculinity in migration interdisciplinary feminization of migration

9 Feminization of migration

10 Feminization of migration International Migration Review special issue Gender and Migration Revisited Donato et al. (2006) Also used in a 2007 working paper of the United Nations (Gender, Remittances and Development. Feminization of Migration Working paper 1) remittances and their economic impacts family cohesion Human trafficking gendered division of labor economic & educational opportunities

11 Feminization of migration Relatively greater empowerment of women in the household associated with wage employment Second important outcome: their greater participation in the public sphere and their possible emergence as public actors BUT are also over-represented in the most marginalised and lowest paid jobs

12 Women s immigration = process of liberation

13 Critical social theory Danger of essentialism! entry into paid work =/= always indication of empowerment and improved status for migrant women conceptualize migrants as purely rational actors Illuminating power relations in the migration process that would otherwise be invisible questioning heteronormativity of migration policy uncovering the political implications destabilizing masculinity and its privilege

14 Key contributions of critical thinkers Post-modern (feminist) migration scholars on: labor and care work (Nawyn et al. 2009) => critical household lens transnationalism and citizenship (Ong 1999; Manalansan 2006) Creating connections between the moral economy of the family with the moral economy of the state sexuality and sex work (Parreñas 2011) power relations (Silvey 2004; Mahler & Pessar 2001/2006)

15 Global care chain Is attracting attention across a range of social science fields Feminisation of survival societies, governments, and states more and more depend on the work of women in the labor force. Thus the necessary conditions of work and survival fall increasingly on the shoulders of lowwaged, deprived, and exploited migrant women (S. Sassen) Care drain Many mothers and partners see the decision to migrate as an extension of their mothering responsibilities It allows them to provide necessary remittances for the care of their children but this detracts from the wider issue of men s responsibility to share domestic and care work

16 Care drain Even though it s paid well, you are sinking in the amount of your work. It [is] also very depressing. The only thing you can do is give all your love to [the two-year-old American child]. In my absence from my children, the most I could do with my situation is give all my love to that Child. VICKY DIAZ, DOMESTIC CARE WORKER IN BEVERLY HILLS, WHO HAD TO LEAVE HER CHILDREN IN HER HOME COUNTRY

17 Challenges We need to complicate our understanding of women s migration and not see it as a teleological path towards liberation but instead see it as a complex process of gender contestations Not reduce our perspective on women s migration to gender without accounting for other social factors such as race, class, and nationalism. These other factors are sometimes more salient in determining the quality of life for migrants

18 Conclusion Gender is ( ) a system of power relations that permeates every aspect of the migration experience. One cannot understand the opportunities or barriers to migrate, nor the economic upward mobility of some and the downward mobility of others, nor the desire to settle or return, without understanding how migrants are embedded in a gendered system of relations, with one another and with macro-structures such as global labor markets or states (Nawyn, 2010: 760).

19 Bibliography Hondagneu-Sotelo (1994) Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration. Berkeley/Los Angeles, University of California Press. Boyd & Grieco (2003) Women and Migration: Incorporating Gender into International Migration Theory. Working Paper. Florida State University College of Social Sciences. Silvey (2004) Transnational Migration and the Gender Politics of Scale: Indonesian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 25: Donato et al. (2006) A Glass Half Full? Gender in Migration Studies. International Migration Review, 40: Mahler & Pessar (2006) Gender Matters: Ethnographers Bring Gender from the Periphery toward the Core of Migration Studies. International Migration Review, 40: Nawyn (2010) Gender and Migration: Integrating Feminist Theory into Migration Studies. Sociology Compass 4: Parreñas (2011) Servants of Globalization: Migration and Domestic Work. Stanford University Press. Kraler & Kofman et al. (2011) Gender, Generations and the Family in International Migration. IMISCOE research, Amsterdam University Press.

20 Thank you for listening! For any further questions: