Minority women and the experiences of migration

Abstract

This article addresses the theme of minority relations and the intensification of gender oppression. We adopt a comparative perspective to examine women’s experiences of migration in two diverse locations. The recent focus on difference in feminist writing renders problematic such comparative enterprises through the contemporary concern with questioning the universality of the category “woman.” However, we suggest that the concept has been deconstructed to the point that it raises the possibility that feminism becomes an inadequate theory and methodology for explaining the status of women. Through a comparative analysis of minority women in different social and cultural contexts, we explore this dilemma for feminism. We examine how gender relations reconfigure in reconstituted relations of class, race, and ethnicity and emphasize the necessity of recognizing both the dynamics of migrating feminisms and the centrality of gender in structuring power relations in diverse contexts.