Mirjana MOROKVASIC
Visiting Professor at IGS / Senior Researcher, National Center for Scientific Research, Paris / Professor, UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 10 - Nanterre
The 10th IGS Evening Seminar Series
Migration and Mobility in Contemporary Europe: A Gender Perspective
date
May 16, 23 , June 6, 13, 20 2001
professor
Mirjana MOROKVASIC (Visiting Professor at IGS / Senior Researcher, National Center for Scientific Research, Paris / Professor, UNIVERSITY OF PARIS 10 - Nanterre)
overviews
It has become a part of a conventional wisdom to say that contemporary world wide migrations have become feminized. The assumption that participation of women in migration flows is a new development related to globalisation often underlies this statement. Taking European context as example, it will be shown in this seminar that participation of women in migration is not new, but that the discourse, the awareness about it has been changing, to a large extent under the influence of feminist questioning about the position of women in society and of the research on gender relationships. We shall focus on key moments, issues and conceptulisations which have significantly informed our understanding of women and men on the move today. A selection of some important developements will be identified to show that contemporary ways in bridging time and space are shaped by new opportunitites (or lack of them) related to processes of globalisation and that this shaping is gendered. Gendering migration sheds a new light on issues like assimilation, integration and on tradition-modernity debate. We shall further analyse different patterns of migration in order to explore the ways gender influences the propensity to migrate and determines men's and women's migration experiences and their outcomes. The seminar draws on some of my own research and publications as well as other sources.
May 16, 2001
I. BRINGING TOGETHER MIGRATION AND GENDER
DISCUSSANT: Michiko ISHIZUKA (OCHANOMIZU UNIVERSITY)
MODERATOR: Ruri ITO (OCHANOMIZU UNIVERSITY)
In the first seminar I want to bring together migration and gender. The issues that we want to look at are at the intersection of two research areas (migration studies and gender studies) and have for a long time remained blind spots in or marginal to both mainstreams. Migration and women/gender specialists have for a long time evolved in separate worlds, rarely crossing each other's paths and it is not surprising that, isolated from one another, they ignored each other's problematic: for a long time migration was presented as gender neutral or "all male", whereas women and gender studies have for a long time ignored race and ethnicity. And yet both mainstream discourses have had universalistic ambitions.
How did the women/gender problematic develop in migration studies? Which are the conceptualisations which lead to the raprochement? Where are they still apart?
May 23, 2001
II. FROM GUEST WORKERS TO TRANSNATIONAL MIGRANTS
DISCUSSANT: Akihiro KOIDO (HITOTSUBASHI UNIVERSITY)
MODERATOR: Ruri ITO (OCHANOMIZU UNIVERSITY)
In the second seminar we shall identify European migration patterns before and after 1989, which was an important turning point. The pattern has changed from the "migrant labour system", followed by a phase of settlement of former guest workers, to a highly diversified model influenced by the processes of inclusion and exclusion entailed in the recompositon of Europe, by movements related to ethnic conflicts and by increasing mobility of population, including commuting migration. What is the role women and men play (or are assumed to play) in these different patterns? What are the gendered representations of migrants that still underly the analysis of these patterns, as well as many migration policies and/or their implementation?
June 6, 2001
III. "OTHER" WOMEN'S INCORPORATION IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY
DISCUSSANT: Mariko ADACHI
MODERATOR: Ruri ITO (OCHANOMIZU UNIVERSITY)
Drawing on key developments and conceptualisations in prevous two seminars we shall identify three typical sectors which exemplify the nature of "other" women's incorporation in the European economy: garment industry, domestic and sex services. What are the common dimensions of the definition of "work" in these three sectors? How do gendered and racialized representations of women in sending and receiving societies influence their incorporation in these sectors? What comparisons can we make with the situation in Japan and in the Asia-Pacific region?
June 13, 2001
IV. WHAT ARE THE STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE?
DISCUSSANT: Nanako INABA (IBARAKI UNIVERSITY)
MODERATOR: Ruri ITO (OCHANOMIZU UNIVERSITY)
In traditional migration research the question raised was in terms of "change": what is the link between migration processes and the distribution of power in family, does migration of women lead to more egalitarian relationships? What is the impact of wage labour on those who migrate and on those staying behind? In this seminar we shall look at the ways in which women transgress boundaries and build coalitions, challenging the status quo. I shall draw on the experience of the sans-papiers movement in France, on my research on self-employment* and, recently, on commuter migrations in post-communist Europe, where the mobility is an important ressource. What are comparisons to be made with Japan?
*The documentary video "Being her own boss", coedited at the International Women's University, could be shown.
June 20, 2001
V. FORCED MIGRATIONS AND SHIFTING IDENTITIES
DISCUSSANT: Chiharu TAKENAKA (MEIJI GAKUIN UNIVERSITY)
MODERATOR: Ruri ITO (OCHANOMIZU UNIVERSITY)
The fifth seminar will turn to migration and nation (building), more specifically addressing the issue of forced migrations and shifting identities. Among the key developments in the post 1989 Europe mentioned in our second seminar are rising nationalism and violent disintegration of multinational states like Yugoslavia. In this seminar we will look at a particular group of people -binational couples - who used to be considered as the "pillars of Yugoslav identity" and who became prime targets of violence and persecution. What are the gendered aspects of violence and also the gendered strategies in escaping violence in armed conflict? What is the meaning of the recent The Hague Condamnation of Bosnian Serbs for rape in war? Again, what comparisons can be made with experiences of violence and armed conflict elsewhere?
※This event is finished.
