Gender and Migration in Southern Europe: Women on the Move 9781474214810

Citation preview

· ~'~1

~
me %# Gendering New Migrations to Southern Europe r

FLOYA

ANTHIAS

Introduction The title of this chapter refers to how the migration of women involves 'metaphors of home', that is movement of homes in terms of a movement physically in space, the movements and inter-relationships between these spaces and the impacts that the related symbolic and identity shifts have on women's lives in different ways. Migration, if nothing else, is both an escape (forced or otherwise) from the original homeland and a search for a better life and some kind of new home if not a new homeland. In one sense it is not difficult to gender new transnational migrations to southern Europe because, unlike earlier migrations which were, paradigmatically, predominantly male (although women have always also migrated on their own), much migration today is female, particularly migration from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Latin America. Gender is a relational concept as well as a central organizing principle of social relations (Anthias 1998a, Indra 1999). Within most approaches to women in migration, there has been a tendency to treat gender as additive and to reduce it to looking at women migrants. However, gendering migration is not just a question of recognizing the proportions of women migrants or their economic and social roles. It is also important to consider the role of gender processes and discourses, as well as identities, in the migration and settlement process. This requires looking at the new processes that have given rise to the feminization of migration as well as the particular forms of insertion and mobilization that this involves. The extent to which this feminization may be 15

l

"".,

~

\\

Filipino and Albani'a n Women Migrant Workers in Greece: Multiple Layers of Oppression GABRIELLA

LAZARIDIS

Introduction In southern Europe, as already mentioned in the introductory chapter in this book, a major reversal of historical patterns has developed in recent years. Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece became receivers of migrants (both poverty migrants and highly qualified experts) and of refugees from non-European countries (see King and Black 1997; Anthias and Lazaridis 1999). This phenomenon has been explained in terms of their geographical location, the residual effects of African colonial influences and the inadequacies of methods of surveillance and control of immigration used in southern Europe (see Fielding 1993: 50). Moreover, as Castles and Miller (1993: 267) rightly argue, 'in an increasingly international economy, it is difficult to open borders for movements of information, commodities and capital and yet close them to people'. Women occupy a central position in these migration flows, both as 'dependent' and, more importantly, as 'independent' economic migrants, playing protagonist, active roles. At the same time, throughout southern Europe policies aimed at reducing labour market rigidities and enhancing competitiveness have been introduced. This increases the eagerness of employers to hire undocumented workers, in a strongly gcndered labour market that leaves few opportunities for women other than in the sex and 'entertainment' industries, and in feminized spheres of some services (tourism, nursing, domestic).

49

",. il ~ '\

The Making of Periphtadti~ Spaces: The Case of Albanian Undocumented Female Migrants in the Sex Industry of Athens l IORDANIS

PSIMMENOS

he present study is about women migrants who work in the sex industry, as part of a 'human landscape' which is constructed out of global economic interdependencies and out of the racialization of labour in Athens. This human landscape, as Sibley (1997: ix) argues, can be 'read as a landscape of exclusion' and also as a landscape that takes shape within a particular context and social space, and derives its sociological meaning out of the juxtaposition of the two in relation to women. The human landscape that is analysed here relates to the transfer of women across borders, to their work in providing sexual services, their placement in exclusionary spatial settings, and networks that reproduce and culturally maintain those settings. These processes both interconnect female migration across borders and at the same time 'fragment' their identities and cultural presence in the particular social environment. This chapter is based on field research of Albanian undocumented migrants in Athens and in particular of economic migrants, who arrived during the period 1991-5, as part of cross-border interconnections and as part of the global-local expansion of the service sector and in particular of domestic and 'entertainment services'. Contrary to what is believed by many scholars, the flow of Albanian migrants, and especially female Albanians (1991) did not start at a time when southern European countries changed from major 'exporters' of cheap labour force, to major 'importers' of economically destitute

T

81

'J J

;- ,, 0 , J ,V

Female Migrants in ltalt: Coping in a Country of New Immigration VICTORIA

CHELL-RoBINSON

Introduction

As growing numbers of women are likely to opt for international migration as a means of improving their life chances, it seems particularly important that we consider how these women cope with their new lives and how the countries, where they arrive, receive them. The context for this study is the migration 'about-face' that has occurred in southern Europe since the early 1980s. Over the past two decades, southern Europe, and specifically for this study Italy, changed from being areas of net emigration to areas of net immigration, most importantly with Significant immigrations from the 'south'. This study focuses not so much on this well-documented turnaround, I but on the effect on women of international migration to a country of new immigration and on their economic and non-economic activities. Key findings of the data include altered power and status relationships between the sexes and across generations. This is exemplified in the spatial arrangements constructed within the migrant's new environment. The investigation is also a response to the general need for a better understanding of the role of women in international migration, concluding with the observation that these women are pivotal members of their communities in allowing them access to new forms of production. To investigate the issue of women's participation in international migration this study relates the experience of two female migrant groups arriving in Italy at a tumultuous time in Italy's immigration history, Filipinas and Somalian women. Initially, female migration to 103

'/' /

"/

f~".,·

Migrant Women in 'ftai¥~"< National Trends and Local Perspectives MARINA

ORSINI-JONES

FRANCESCA

AND

GATTULLO

Introduction For the first hundred years of its existence as a unified nation state, Italy was a country of emigration, not immigration. Many hundreds of thousands of Italians migrated to north and south America and to other countries of Western Europe, such as France, Germany and Belgium, in search of greater economic wellbeing. To these migrations abroad was added, in the years that followed the Second World War, the phenomenon of internal migration. Thousands more moved from southern Italy to work in the factories of the northern 'industrial triangle' - roughly the area delimited by the three cities of Genoa, Turin and Milan - during the boom years of the 1950s and 1960s. These internal migrations, however, were often seen as short term. Young men led the way, leaving the family behind, at least temporarily. The distance was not so great, it was still the same country and the same language. Any needs to be met were those of young men, either single or with a family to be sent money and visited whenever possible. In Western Europe, in the post-war period, the archetypal situation has been that of the young male pioneer, hoping to send for his family once he has established himself finanCially (or perhaps to find himself a wife later from his country of origin). Meeting the needs of immigrants therefore has meant primarily meeting the needs of young males, who often did not establish families in the new country until they themselves were able to provide for them, financially at least. The needs of migrant women were often overlooked completely. 125

/

/'

i"$'> :1-':1.

'