Gender and Migration: Integrating Feminist Theory into Migration Studies

In approximately three decades, gender and migration scholarship has moved from a few studies that included women immigrants or included gender as a dichotomous variable to a burgeoning literature that has made significant contributions to understanding numerous aspects of the migration experience. The larger field of migration studies, however, has not yet fully embraced feminist migration analysis and theory. In this article, I describe the development of gender and migration research and its theoretical underpinnings. Afterward, I highlight the key contributions that feminist migration scholars have made to our knowledge of labor migration, migrant families and social networks, transnationalism and citizenship, sex trafficking, and sexuality. Considering these important contributions, I explore the reasons why feminist migration research still lies largely outside the mainstream of the broader field and how it might achieve better integration.     

Women’s Agency in Gender‐Traditional Religions: A Review of Four Approaches

The concept of agency is useful for feminist research on women in gender‐traditional religions. By focusing on religious women’s agency, scholars understand these women as actors, rather than simply acted upon by male‐dominated social institutions. This article reviews the advantages and limitations of feminist scholarship on the agency of women who participate in gender‐traditional religions by bringing into dialog four approaches to understanding agency. The resistance agency approach focuses on women who attempt to challenge or change some aspect of their religion. The empowerment agency approach focuses on how women reinterpret religious doctrine or practices in ways that make them feel empowered in their everyday life. The instrumental approach focuses on the non‐religious positive outcomes of religious practice, and a compliant approach focuses on the multiple and diverse ways in which women conform to gender‐traditional religious teaching. This article concludes by discussing the future direction of scholarship.     

Networks of capital,networks for migration: political–economic integration and the changing geography of Mexico–US migration

While economic globalization has altered the geography of international migration and introduced an array of new sources and destinations, our understanding of the specific mechanisms that link economic globalization to migration remains limited. In this article, I attempt to extend previous research by undertaking an empirical case study of Mexican migration to the USA. Using a unique dataset, I construct multivariate models to test whether, in the context of economic integration, occupations channel migration between similar sectors of the Mexican and US economies. I focus on the food‐processing sector because of its role in the geographic dispersal of Mexican immigration. The results show a strong channelling of Mexican immigration along an occupational line linking the Mexican and US food‐processing sectors. The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which ushered in a period of intensive political and economic integration, strengthened this occupational channel. By seeing the changing geography of Mexico–US migration in the context of economic globalization, this study casts light on the micro‐level foundations of the globalization–migration nexus.     

‘Knowing one's place’: gender,mobility and shifting subjectivity in Eastern Indonesia

Abstract In this article I analyse the gendered space of transnational mobility by problematizing migrant subjectivity in everyday practices. In line with feminist perspectives I highlight the significance of the micro‐scale experience of female migrants from Eastern Indonesia in acquiring mobility as a struggle for new subjectivity. I frame this migration as a production of the subjective space of power. Based on in‐depth interviews with returned migrants, I present reflexive accounts of two migrants on contract domestic work abroad to illuminate the changing contours of the relationships between gender, mobility and shifting subjectivity. Households take into account the cultural meanings of space in everyday life including local relations in the decisions on mobility. Strategies of ‘knowing one's place’ reflect women's agency in negotiating alternative roles and positions within the intra‐household dynamics and in the workplace. Women's personal accounts have the potential to illuminate spatial processes of migration as a contested space for the repositioning of self in networks of family, kin, local and global relations.     

The politics of erased migrations: Expanding a relational,intersectional sociology of Latinx gender and migration

Sociologists of gender and Latina/o migration and Chicana feminist scholars in Chicana/o Studies have made extensive interventions in the academic project of recovering the experiences of women in migration studies across disciplines. I consider these contributions and advocate for an interdisciplinary research agenda that continues expanding relational scholarship by developing the concept of the politics of erased migrations, an analytical tool to theorize why and how the embodied experiences of Latinas are marginalized and misrepresented in academic research. Latinas experience various physical and symbolic migrations—across and within national borders, social and political contexts, identities, academic disciplines, methodologies, and social movements. Yet Latina feminist experiences, knowledge, and political movement largely remain at the margins of these borders. Through a review of prominent research on gender and migration centered on heteronormativity, reproduction, and the nation‐state, I demonstrate the possibilities of the politics of erased migration as a theoretical intervention in expanding a relational, intersectional sociology of Latinx gender and migration. This paper carries implications for shifting the field of Latinx gender and migration from a focus on current oppressive conditions to one that also imagines new avenues for social justice and alternative social worlds.     

Producing and Reducing Gender Inequality in A Worker‐Recovered Cooperative

Decades of feminist scholarship documents the persistence of gender inequality in work organizations. Yet few studies explicitly examine gender inequality in collectivist organizations like worker cooperatives. This article draws on the “theory of gendered organizations” to consider how gender operates in a worker‐recovered cooperative in contemporary Argentina. Based on ethnographic and archival research in Hotel B.A.U.E.N., this article finds that although gender remains a salient feature of the workplace, the cooperative has also adopted policies that take steps toward addressing gender inequality. It concludes by offering an updated theoretical framework for the future study of “gendered organizations.”     

Women and Work in the Information Age

Widespread social transformation and new class structures are predicted with the coming of the ‘information age’, but there is disagreement about the likely outcomes for work and em‐ployment patterns. Mainstream writing on the information age, both from the functionalist and Marxist traditions, tends not to consider likely consequences for women, but recent feminist research on gender and technology, treating technology as masculine culture, offers a useful framework for further research. This article argues that the information age may lead to some areas of convergence between the sexes in their experience of future work, but men may continue to defend areas of competence and to dominate the high status and powerful occupational positions of the future.     

Should I stay or should I go now? Exploring Polish women's returns “home”

At a time when there are more people on the move than ever before, it is pivotal to explore people's motivations and experiences of return migration. Whilst motivations for migration are comparatively well explored, return migrants' experiences are less well‐known and migrants' gender is rarely considered. This article addresses these gaps. It is based on qualitative research and in‐depth interviews with 32 Polish women: 16 migrants and 16 return migrants. Considered through the lens of agency and structure, this research uncovers how fluid the process of migration has become; migration motivations and patterns are blurred and interlinked with one another while classic migration theories seem outdated. The study uses an “intersection of motivations” to show how inseparable migration‐related motivations have become. This article contributes to the growing literature on East–West return migration and highlights women as migrants and the gendered nature of their mobility.     

Marriage‐Related Migration to the UK

Spouses form the largest single category of migrant settlement in the UK, but research and policy making on marriage‐related migration to Britain provides incomplete coverage of the phenomenon, having been dominated by a focus on the South Asian populations that are among the largest groups of such migrants. By bringing together immigration statistics with information from academic and third‐sector sources, this article attempts to provide a more balanced and nuanced portrayal of patterns and practices of marriage‐related migration to the UK. In doing so, it reveals important nationality and gender differences in migration flows and considers how varying marriage practices, social and political contexts, and policies of both receiving and sending countries may work to influence marriage‐related migration streams. It also exposes the limitations and lacunae in existing research on this diverse form of migration, highlighting the danger that immigration policy made on the basis of partial evidence will produce unexpected consequences.     

Who cares? A lack of self‐care for women in the non‐profit/non‐governmental sector

In this article I examine the lack of self‐care regimes for women working in the non‐profit/non‐governmental sector. While I draw on ethnographic research conducted in the Malaysian context of women's organizations, the issue of self‐care for activists and feminist activists is a global one that crosses borders and boundaries. I explore the gendered nature of care and care professions to demonstrate how women are predominantly affected in these working environments. To date, there has been little scholarship on self‐care and care in non‐profit/non‐governmental working environments. Using interviews with women working in the sector, I argue that women's emotional, mental and physical health comes at a cost in these hectic workplaces. This article contributes to the literature on gender, work and care in women's organizations by taking seriously women's concerns working in these spaces, where they experience self‐neglect and institutional barriers in care regimes.     

Aspiration,reunification and gender transformation in Jat Sikh marriages from India to Canada

Abstract In this article I explore marriage as a strategy of family migration among a transnational community of middle‐class Jat Sikhs. Family reunification and status aspirations are examined as central concerns of the transnational movement of Jat Sikhs from India to Canada. It is argued that Jat Sikh transnationalism and gender are mutually‐constitutive: migration strategies can construct women, as well as men, as agents of marital citizenship, and in facilitating migration, transnational marriage may transform practices and notions of gender and status. The article is based on preliminary ethnographic research among Jat Sikh brides in Toronto and Vancouver, and forms part of a larger study of gender, modernity and identity in Indo‐Canadian Jat Sikh marriages.     

The ‘new industrial man’ as unhero: Doing postfeminist masculinities in an Italian pharmacological research centre

Recent work has documented the need to engage with how men construct masculinities within postfeminist discourses in the workplace. Postfeminism has sparked debates concerning the changing ideals of masculinities, highlighting the tensions between traditional forms of patriarchy and ‘new’ ways of being a man (e.g., emotional, a ‘new father’, in crisis). Men have been depicted as being in search of a new identity, opposed to the ever‐growing confidence and empowerment of women. In mobilizing postfeminism as a discourse, this article illustrates how men working in an Italian pharmacological research centre (managed by men but dominated by women) assume subject positions that contradictorily fluctuate between tradition and fluid modernity, to reveal a masculinity which we identify with the ‘new industrial man’. The postfeminist masculinities exposed in the analysis mesh pro‐ and anti‐feminist ideas by appealing to un/heroic and romanticized subjectivities. The analysis also shows how un/heroic masculinities and men's appeal to biological differences to reinforce social ones and devalue the feminine obfuscate organizational gender inequalities. The article advances masculinity theory by offering a nuanced analysis of how masculinities and men are affected by paradoxical contemporary pressures for more egalitarian gender relations and a renewed emphasis on patriarchal traditions, which continue to support the gendering of the workplace.     

Gender and Agricultural Science: Evidence From Two Surveys of Land‐Grant Scientists*

Abstract We test two sets of hypotheses concerning the association between gender and various structural and attitudinal variables, using data collected in two surveys (1979 and 1995–1996) from random samples of land‐grant agricultural scientists. The first set of hypotheses centers on the expectation that the resources and rewards of agricultural science are distributed unequally by gender. We find significant gender differences in scientists' postdoctoral work experience, academic rank, employment of graduate students, rate of book publication, and links with private industry. Our second set of hypotheses, drawing on the literatures of feminist epistemology and situated knowledge, focuses on the relationship between scientists' gender and perceptions of the goals of agricultural research. Our findings indicate that gender is unimportant in explaining differences in scientists' commitment to agricultural sustainability, environmental issues, and family farm preservation as important goals of land‐grant research. Yet we find significant gender differences in attitudes toward biotechnology and the growing links between land‐grant universities and private industry.     

Feminist and Gender Media Studies: A Critical Overview

This paper offers a general overview of past, current, and developing issues and debates in the growing field of gender and feminist media studies. Its main aim is to provide for those who are new to the field, as well as advanced students and researchers, a broad sense of what is now significant and important area of academic research. It engages with the differences and similarities between gender and feminist media studies, gendered communication systems, gendered news production, feminist methodologies and methods in communication research (textual, audience, and production based), the media's role in constructing gender, and gendered and feminist research by specific media form including advertising, magazines, film, television, news, radio, and the Internet and new media. The outline of research presented is not exhaustive; however, it attempts to trace certain significant developments in the field historically, conceptually, methodologically politically and trans‐nationally.     

Why do Europeans Migrate to Berlin? Social‐Structural Differences for Italian,British, French and Polish Nationals in the Period between 1980 and 2002*

One of the main issues in migration research concerns the reasons migrants have for crossing borders. It is assumed in the research that migration is primarily economically driven. In recent studies, however, the importance of social and cultural reasons for migration has become apparent. In this context, the present contribution discusses the reasons for the migration of Europeans from Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and Poland who moved to Germany (Berlin) between 1980 and 2002. In this case, it can be shown empirically that purely economic reasons play a lesser role in migration than is generally assumed, whereas social and cultural motives actually have a much greater influence. Primary data gathered in Berlin early in 2002 form the empirical foundation of the study. Multinomial logistic regressions are used to discuss the function of social‐structural differences (e.g., nationality, age, gender, education, social origin) in the formation of individual reasons for migration.     

Gender relations in rural areas: the importance of women's domestic role

This paper argues the value of gender relations to the construction of theoretical perspectives in rural geography. It outlines very briefly recent developments in the study of feminist geography, drawing attention to ongoing debate concerning the nature and importance of patriarchy. In doing so it stresses the need to look beyond the economic significance of women's activities and at the interconnectivity of production and reproduction. The paper then moves on to a discussion of women's domestic role within rural society, looking specifically at the way in which this role, and women's place in the rural community, both reinforces and is reinforced by aspects of the dominant rural ideology. The conclusions reached suggest that the characteristics of rural areas, particularly their size, remoteness and lack of resources, together with the strength and orientation of the rural ideology, have a unique influence on both gender role and gender relations.     

Feminism and Imperialism, 1890–1920: Our Anti‐Imperialist Sisters—Missing in Action from American Feminist Sociology*

This article retrieves part of our historical past to address two omissions in American feminist sociology on the subject of global imperialism. The first section addresses the inadequate attention feminist sociologists have paid to how major leaders of the women's movement responded to U.S. overseas expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It documents how these early feminists had both progressive and reactionary responses to the anti‐imperialist struggles of their era. Particular emphasis is given to how issues of race, class, and gender were interwoven in their discourses on imperialism. The second section focuses on how the writings of the most famous woman theorist and critic of imperialism during this era—Rosa Luxemburg—are virtually ignored in U.S. portrayals of feminist sociology and women founders of sociology. To address this omission, Luxemburg's theory of imperialism is examined, as well as how it has influenced contemporary global feminist works. A critical analysis of these Luxemburg‐inspired works considers their implications for understanding global imperialism today. In this way, the past is used to clarify the present.     

Carceral politics as gender justice? The “traffic in women” and neoliberal circuits of crime,sex, and rights

This article draws upon recent works in sociology, jurisprudence, and feminist theory in order to assess the ways in which feminism, and sex and gender more generally, have become intricately interwoven with punitive agendas in contemporary US politics. Melding existing theoretical discussions of penal trends with insights drawn from my own ethnographic research on the contemporary anti-trafficking movement in the United States—the most recent domain of feminist activism in which a crime frame has prevailed against competing models of social justice—I elaborate upon the ways that neoliberalism and the politics of sex and gender have intertwined to produce a carceral turn in feminist advocacy movements previously organized around struggles for economic justice and liberation. Taking the anti-trafficking movement as a case study, I further demonstrate how human rights discourse has become a key vehicle both for the transnationalization of carceral politics and for the reincorporation of these policies into the domestic terrain in a benevolent, feminist guise. I conclude by urging greater and more nuanced attention to the operations of gender and sexual politics within mainstream analyses of contemporary modes of punishment, as well as a careful consideration of the neoliberal carceral state within feminist discussions of gender, sexuality, and the law.     

The salience of gender in return migration

Return migration warrants special attention as a growing trend in our current globalized environment wherein migration can no longer be assumed to be a one‐way journey. As studies of return migration are burgeoning, this article argues for the salience of taking socially constructed ideas of gender as a central analytical factor in order to understand the complexities of human movement. It is imperative to take up gender both as a category of analysis and as a means to expand our theoretical understanding of migration. The process of return migration is overshadowed by gendered ideologies both in the home and in the host nation, as migrants leave and return to gendered societies. Through a review of recent literature, this paper will argue the multifaceted benefits of incorporating a gendered perspective in return migration research.     

The Micro‐politics of Gendering in Networking

Networking processes contribute to the perpetuation of gender inequalities in everyday practices in organizations. This article examines the implications of the conceptualization of gender as practice for social network theory. The three central elements of this critical feminist approach to networking are the study of agency, identity construction and the micro‐political processes of networking and gendering. To illustrate that networking practices are gendering practices, that there are various manifestations of those practices, and the way in which networking and gendering are intertwined, the networking practices of four white, Dutch female and male account managers are discussed. This micro‐political analysis suggests that networking does not necessarily reinforce gender inequality, which opens up the possibility of examining which combinations of networking and gendering contribute to changing the gender order.