Gendered Social Roles and Female Labor Migration

International labor migration plays a key role in the South Indian state of Kerala, with repercussions for family formation, childcare, dating, and many other aspects of culture. This chapter focuses on how female labor migration affects male and female gender roles in Kerala with respect to religious activity. Female labor migration often results in enhanced personal power for women, giving them a greater say in how things are done in their families. But what about religion? How do women who have experienced expanded social possibilities through international work think about who they are as religious actors? Do expanded female roles in the home and the workplace translate into more expansive roles for women in religious spheres? And what about men? How have men dealt with the repercussions of female labor migration? With women taking on new social roles, what happens to traditional ideas about men and masculinity? Field work on a popular South India pilgrimage offers data to show how women and men in Kerala are adapting to changes wrought by female labor migration.

A Phenomenological Study of Female and Feminist Identities Among Iranian Muslim Immigrant Women

Little is known about Iranian Muslim immigrant women in the US with respect to their female and feminist identities and the interconnections with Islam and immigration. The aim in the current study was to provide detailed answers to the research questions using diagrammatic elicitation, semi-structured individual interviews, and observation as the primary tools for collecting data. Two themes—immigration and experiencing more freedom and autonomy and immigration and different conditions—emerged through diagrammatic elicitation. Five themes emerged during the interviews. These themes included experiencing social change and a new definition of the situation, experiencing different values, empowerment and emancipation, fulfillment of needs, and self-image. Three themes appeared from observation of the participants in the group meetings: gender identity versus national and religious identities, America the land of opportunities, and to be or not be is the question. The current study suggests that the participants are experiencing a sort of gender consciousness and agency.

Introducing a Black African Immigrant Womanist Approach to Examine the Experiences of African Immigrant Women in International Migration

According to the International Organization of Migration, women constituted 47.9% of the world's 272 million international migrants in 2019. These three regions North America (51.8%), Europe (51.8%) and Oceania (50.4%) accommodated a large female migrant population compared to men (UN DESA, 2019). Black African immigrant women contribute significantly to this surge of female migration. Given the increasing population of women in international migration process, the main focus of this chapter is to argue that although women from different nations have become visible in the migration literature, there are no theories or concepts to explore their experiences in the migration process. To encourage the development of gendered international migration theories, this chapter introduces a Black African immigrant womanist approach to guide future research studies to explore the unique experiences of African immigrant women at all stages of the migration process. Four case studies were used to highlight the authenticity of this new concept.

Worthy

In the chapter, the author outlines how cultural and individual immigrant narratives are shaped by neoliberalism. The author shows that in “doing gratitude,” the continuous effort of appearing grateful, immigrant narratives create a space where native-born individuals can construct themselves into narratives of salvation. The performance of gratitude has several key components that render it compatible with neoliberal ideology. The chapter proposes that narratives play a role in, first, establishing worthiness as defined by neoliberalism (sometimes at the expense of dignity), and second, promising future worthiness (sometimes at the expense of remembering old identities). The author uses Dina Nayeri's The Ungrateful Refugee as an example of a cultural and individual narrative that both challenges and reinforces gendered neoliberal ideals.

Feminist Approaches to Global Migration

Women comprise slightly less than half of the total population of immigrants across the world. As advocacy and fight for equal rights, opportunities, and identity for women continue, migration opens doors to global education for immigrant women to obtain personal autonomy, independence, empowerment, and a chance of earning higher wages than what they would have earned in their home countries. On the opposite end, women may also face oppression, gender inequality, and discrimination based on their ethnicity, class, and race through migration. This chapter highlights the rewards and drawbacks experienced by migrant women and feminist theory approaches to global migration. Examining the experience of migrant women using feminist theory underpinnings could potentially lead to deeper understanding and recommendations for international policies as well as evidence-based, culturally competent interventions to assist women migrants.

Crossing Borders

People around the world are moving from their home countries to other destinations to find safety for various reasons such as war, poverty, and violence. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 70.8 million people had been forced to move from their home countries by the end of 2018 and half of the world's displaced population is women. This chapter explores the challenges that refugee and asylum-seeker women experience, including mental health issues and sexual and gender-based violence. The authors systematically reviewed relevant studies that have been published in peer-reviewed journals that were from January 2000 through January 2020. Six articles met the inclusion criteria. The authors critically explored and analyzed these six articles, and the findings were discussed under the subjects of mental health and gender-based issues. Finally, recommendations were made to determine future directions for practice, policy, and research.

What Made Them Leave?

Almost coinciding with the prosperity of the Celtic Tiger economic story of success, recent decades have witnessed how politicians, scholars, and writers started to vindicate the contributions of the Irish diaspora and, by extension, those of Irish emigrant women in the construction of Mother Ireland. The chapter attempts to illustrate how the contemporary Irish short story written during these years was depicting disheartening or happy-ending stories about emigration, exile, and return, being at times regressive in its outlooks, and at times setting the stories of their heroines in the here and now. Here, due to the readings of these creative works, a more nuanced picture of Irish women's emigration is offered and this goes beyond the conceptualizations of those women who left the Irish shores as vulnerable, ignorant, poor, pregnant, or sexually deviant, while the phenomenon of immigration itself is understood in relation to variables such as class, age, education, nationality, and religion.

South African Destination Among African Women Immigrants

The role of migration in the development of cities cannot be downplayed. Migration across the globe helps break space and place isolation. In these migrant dynamics, women and most especially foreign migrants play a vital role. Various factors account for the migration of women within Africa. This chapter identifies the dichotomy in-country experiences by African immigrant women to South Africa and therefore attempts to examine the African women migration trend into South Africa. The questions that guide the study include, What is the migration trend and the push and pull factors for women immigrant into South Africa? The questions asked are to bring about a better understanding of the state of Africa women's immigrants into South Africa.

Hispanic/Latino Immigrant Women's Social Stressors

The United States has seen a large influx of immigrants in recent years, with Latino/ Hispanic immigrants making up slightly more than half of immigrants. This chapter identifies the major social stressors of Hispanic immigrant women, including language barrier, housing, lack of social networks, and sexual exploitation. This chapter includes a section on best practices and strategies for working with Latino/Hispanic women and families.

The Unnoticed Side of Remittance Transportation

This chapter focuses on the gender dimension of remittance transportation particularly the encounters of women with remittance transporters who are mainly men. The chapter highlights how women remitters have had to navigate the risky streets of Hillbrow as they are forced to locate the remittance transporters to send home their hard-earned remittances. The chapter presents narratives on the different ways in which women in the diaspora negotiate the risks associated with the remittance transportation spaces. The core argument of the chapter relates to how women tend to get undermined within the highly masculinised remittance transportation spaces. In these spaces not only are women victims of various forms of crime, verbal and physical abuse, but they are also the victims of exploitation and dishonesty. The chapter is a result of ongoing ethnographic research that has evolved since March 2018 and has involved conducting observations and informal interviews in Hillbrow, the hub of remittance transportation. Theoretically, the chapter draws from the works of Federici on feminism.