Gendering the Politics of Migration

Abstract

Although every aspect of the migration process is shaped by political factors and migration presents many political challenges on the domestic and international levels, the attention of political scientists in the United States and Europe has been limited to relatively few topics, including control over entry and exit, and issues of incorporation and citizenship. Work that considers the political aspects of migration from a gender perspective constitutes an even smaller body of work. In considering the contribution that political science might make to our understanding of gendered migration, this essay points both to some pioneering studies of gendered patterns of migration and incorporation, and also to the growing concern with gender among international organizations and policy makers. Interestingly, the essay shows that it is scholars in neighboring disciplines who have more often have taken up questions of governance and the development of gender-fair policy towards migrants. The essay raises questions about the relationship between disciplinary boundaries and topical areas and also about the ways in which regional contexts shape the nature of scholarly inquiry by contrasting work on Asia with that in Europe and the United States.

At the Intersection of Gender, Language, and Transnationalism

“…Millions of women, who depart from their impoverished homes in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa to work in the homes, factories, and sex and entertainment industries of more affl uent countries, engage in low -waged women ' s work (Ehrenreich and Hochschild 2003 ) -women ' s work that is no longer just women ' s work, but has become migrant women ' s work. The international community has only recently begun to address the needs, challenges, opportunities, and rights of migrants at the intersections of gender, race, class, and nationality (Farah 2006 ;Piper 2006 ). The linguistic factor has increasingly been acknowledged as one of the most crippling obstacles to the social inclusion of migrants, leading to various forms of exploitation and discrimination in the host countries IOM 2006a , 2006b ); or, to phrase it differently, " [t]he language barrier seems to be the single most important reason: the ' original obstacle ' that hampers all aspects of social inclusion. "…”

‘Illegal Migrants’, Gender and Vulnerability: The Case of the EU’s Returns Directive

“…19 However, Member States' records with regard to gender-related harms are uneven and still evolving (Freedman 2008(Freedman , 2009. It is also known that, due to lack of economic resources, far fewer female, as opposed to male, asylumseekers are able to reach Europe and have their asylum cases heard (Kofman 2008;Piper 2006), a trend that the EU's current policies, seeking to stop asylum-seekers from arriving (through visa requirements, carrier sanctions and border controls) and to deal with any new claims expeditiously, is likely to encourage. The Asylum Procedures Directive, which sanctions the use of the safe third-country and safe country of origin concepts, 20 ignores the fact that even in some countries deemed generally safe, some individuals or segments of the population (such as minority women) might not be safe after all (Freedman 2008).…”

“…Kofman et al 2000;Kapur 2005;Piper 2006) and legal analysis of some migration policy areas is increasingly incorporating also attention to gender and race patterns, e.g. in refugee law and citizenship (Dauvergne 2008;Kapur 2005).…”

Intersectionalizing European politics: bridging gender and ethnicity

“…Both strands of research are concerned with the construction of categories such as 'citizenship', 'race', 'ethnicity' and 'gender' in their analyses. Yet in spite of overlapping research agendas, a constructive dialogue between Gender Studies and Migration and Ethnic Studies is largely absent (Piper 2006). …”