Abstract

Based on the oral histories of eighty migrant women and thirty additional interviews with ‘native’ women in the ‘receiving’ countries, this volume documents the contemporary phenomenon of the feminisation of migration through an exploration of the lives of women, who have moved from Bulgaria and Hungary to Italy and the Netherlands. It assumes migrants to be active subjects, creating possibilities and taking decisions in their own lives, as well as being subject to legal and political regulation, and the book analyses the new forms of subjectivity that come about through mobility.

Part I is a largely conceptual exploration of subjectivity, mobility and gender in Europe. The chapters in Part II focus on love, work, home, communication, and food, themes which emerged from the migrant women’s accounts. In Part III, based on the interviews with ‘native’ women – employers, friends, or in associations relevant to migrant women – the chapters analyse their representations of migrants, and the book goes on to explore forms of intersubjectivity between European women of different cultural origins. A major contribution of this book is to consider how the movement of people across Europe is changing the cultural and social landscape with implications for how we think about what Europe means.

Cover image: Painting by Carla Accardi. Reproduced with the kind permission of Luca Barsi of the Galleria Accademia, Via Accademia Albertina 3/e, 10123 Torino.

"…the result of an exciting oral history project…this rich edited volume offers a compelling look at the meanings of the feminization of intra-European migration…One of the primary strengths of the volume is its effective approach to the collection and transmission of oral histories." — Oral History

Luisa Passerini was Professor of Cultural History at the University of Turin, and is currently External Professor at the European University Institute, Florence, and Visiting Professor in the Oral History Master Program, Columbia University, New York.

Enrica Capussotti is Research Fellow in the Department of History, University of Siena, Italy, and is author of Gioventù perduta. Gli anni cinquanta dei giovani e del cinema in Italia (Florence: Giunti, 2004).

Dawn Lyon is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent, UK, and has published in the field of gender, work and employment in comparative perspective.

Ioanna Laliotou is Assistant Professor in Contemporary History, University of Thessaly, Greece, and is author of Transatlantic Subjects: Acts of Migration and Culture of Transnationalism between Europe and America (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2004).