FeMMiWork · Women Migrants from the Northern Mediterranean and Work in Postwar Northwestern Europe

A key assumption about postwar migration in Europe is incorrect – that nearly all who moved from the European South to work in the booming northwestern European economies were men. In fact, anywhere between 25 and 30% were women, but their role was erased by policy-makers, and subsequently by researchers, who framed labour migration as male. The resulting epistemological fog has led to claims that the feminisation of migration is a recent phenomenon. Women’s work trajectories, and experiences of work, were distinctly gendered. Rectifying the record involves not only rescuing the forgotten stories of women working legally in factories. It also involves rethinking the notion of labour migration by focusing on invisible and informal, and yet crucial, labour, such as domestic work by women classified as dependents. By creating a counter-archive comprised of documents, oral history, and creative writing, this project will reconstruct the histories of women migrants. Four researchers will engage in systematic comparison of the trajectories and experiences of women from southern Europe (Italy, Yugoslavia) and Turkey, living and working in two destination states (France, West Germany) between 1955 and 1985. Using a transnational framework that considers relationships to multiple places, we will examine how gender and ethnic/national difference intersected to shape women’s experiences. By recognizing and analysing the central place of women from Southern Europe and Turkey in building the northwestern European economies in the postwar boom years, the study examines the genesis of what sociologists call “counter-geographies of globalization.” In de-centering European history by focusing on migrant women from Europe’s periphery, it will change our understanding of the evolution of Europe after the Second World War. Through interdisciplinary critical engagement, it promises to generate new insights into the evolving role of gendered labour in globalization processes.