Gender, Women and Precarity: Examples from Turkey

Abstract

Migratory status influences men and women differently and there is a class position which interacts with gender and migratory dynamics. Following that it becomes important to focus on the intersection of gender, migration and class dynamics. This chapter utilizes the term ‘precarity’ to understand how class dynamics (mainly understood as labor and associated life conditions) relate to gender and migratory status. Precarity is mainly used to refer to insecure labor conditions, which are not homogenous and emerge in various forms as depicted through a gendered understanding of precarity. This chapter thus seeks to answer two questions: (1) which distinct forms of precarity develop out of the intersection of gender and migration? and (2) what are the conceptual/theoretical implications of this intersection in understanding precarity and precariousness? In answering these questions, in particular the first one, the chapter draws on existing research on migrant women in Turkey.