Experiences Of Migrant Women Research Articles

Money-earning activities and empowerment experiences of rural migrant women in the city: The case of turkey

This article investigates empowerment in relation to money-earning activities in the context of rural-to-urban migrant women in poor families in Turkey. Acknowledging the exploitative character of employment accessible to migrant women, it asks whether working migrant women gain something in their families in return for their economic contributions. The article points to the traditional role of men as the heads of the family and family honor ( namus) as the cultural basis which acts against the empowerment of migrant women in Turkish society. It attempts to understand empowerment as articulated by the women themselves based upon their lived experiences. While doing so, it examines women's positions in the family with regard to their role in the intra-family decision making, their degree of control over their earned money, and male violence in the family. It further discusses whether or not the experiences of migrant women can be considered as empowerment, and in this way it aims to contribute to the theoretical development of the concept “empowerment.”

Propionyl-L-carnitine improves exercise performance and functional status in patients with claudication

Governments and service providers have consistently acknowledged the importance of support for women and families in the transition to parenthood. Lower levels of satisfaction and concern about postnatal depression have highlighted women's needs at this time. Migrant women may also face relocation, distant family and support networks, language barriers and potentially discriminatory or culturally insensitive care.The present study evaluates the unique contribution of migrant status, comparing the experience of this group to that of native-born English-speaking women.Secondary analysis of data from a population-based survey of maternity care in Queensland. Experiences of 233 women born outside Australia who spoke another language at home were compared to 2722 Australian-born English-speaking women with adjustment for demographic differences.After adjustment, differences between the groups included physical, psychological aspects and perceptions of care. Women born outside Australia were less likely to report pain after birth was manageable, or rate overall postnatal physical health positively. They more frequently reported having painful stitches, distressing flashbacks and feeling depressed in the postnatal period. Few differences in ratings of care providers were found, however, women born outside Australia were less likely to feel involved in decisions and to understand their options for care. However, they were more likely to report being visited by a care provider at home after birth.The findings represent an important addition to existing qualitative reports of the experiences of migrant women, reflecting poorer postnatal health, issues associated with migration and parenthood and highlighting areas for care improvement.

Chineseness at the crossroads

This article interrogates the practices of Chineseness in the lives of women with Chinese backgrounds living in Australia. It suggests that these women are living in a space of ethnic liminality but that this condition is not limited to diasporic communities. It examines the experiences of migrant women and explores how this borderland space of blurred boundaries functions in the translation of diasporic ethnic subjectivities. It focuses on the processes of subjectification that produce ethnicities that are new but familiar, as the past interweaves with the present to create new but familiar versions of Chineseness. Within multicultural Australia, the production of hybrid ethnic subjectivities is in an increasing state of flux as the boundaries that segregate ethnicities become blurred, as experienced by many in postcolonial locations. This liminal limbo acknowledges the conflictual encounters of diasporic subjects as they negotiate what it means for them to be women with Chinese backgrounds in Australia.

The Possessed and the Dispossessed: Spirits, Identity and Power in a Madagascar Migrant Town

This finely drawn portrait of a complex, polycultural urban community in Madagascar emphasizes the role of spirit medium healers, a group heretofore seen as having little power. These women, Leslie Sharp argues, are far from powerless among the peasants and migrant laborers who work the land in this plantation economy. In fact, Sharp's wide-ranging analysis shows that tromba, or spirit possession, is central to understanding the complex identities of insiders and outsiders in this community, which draws people from all over the island and abroad. Sharp's study also reveals the contradictions between indigenous healing and Western-derived Protestant healing and psychiatry. Particular attention to the significance of migrant women's and children's experiences in a context of seeking relief from personal and social ills gives Sharp's investigation importance for gender studies as well as for studies in medical anthropology, Africa and Madagascar, the politics of culture, and religion and ritual.

Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association

America. She stressed the importance of placing women's migration in the context of and economic conditions. Seeking to maximize their families' economic positions, migrated under different circumstances. Decisions to migrate were shaped by labor force segregation in the destination cities, and by the possible existence of kin or ethnic networks. Women's roles and obligations were the key determinants of their migration decisions. Louise Tilly (New School for Social Research) urged a sensitivity to the difficulty in using identity as a category in historical analysis and suggested that the emerging working-class culture dis cussed by Locke applied to at only one point in their life cycles. She also pointed out that varied places of origin may have had a dramatic effect on the experiences of migrant women. In her comments, Donna Gabaccia (Mercy College) stressed the importance of tying together women adrift and family economy approaches to the experiences of working-class women. She suggested that economic and cultural conditions are difficult to separate when studying immigrant and recommended a comparative approach to the history of female migration. These sessions revealed the need to approach working-class life with a sensitivity to the many factors mediating class experience. The sessions borrowed analytic insights from other disciplines to make sense out of working-class experiences, stepping outside rigid definitions of labor history and narrow concep tions of class. These labor historians benefit from analyses of race, gender, ethnicity, culture, and politics. Yet the various sessions were seldom talking to one another. These varied and useful approaches have eroded the unity of labor history and, while all would agree that something links the experiences of working-class people, it is difficult to blend the diverging approaches into a comprehensive understanding of working-class experience. While these papers offer rich analyses of worker life and protest, they lack an adequate theoretical tie, making sense out of what makes these different cases part of the same history, labor history.

Gender Relations, Peasant Livelihood Strategies and Migration: A Case Study from Cuzco, Peru

Female peasants' participation in migration can best be understood, it is suggested, through an analysis of the role played by gender ideologies and practice in peasant household livelihood strategies.1 As gender acts as a major organisational principle in peasant household maintenance, it assigns labour and responsibilities over the agricultural cycle and the household developmental cycle. Individuals defined largely in terms of their gender roles, take on tasks and duties over their lifetimes, which are governed by a general cultural pattern. When this pattern is adhered to, it structures migration for men and women. In a minority of cases however, migration is a function of strategies, whether individual or household, which stretch these patterns and challenge traditional female roles. Female migration in the Andes, as in Latin America generally, is a neglected field for research. Women in Latin America make up the majority of rural-urban migrants yet the full implications for this for the peasant economy has not been explored. Previous research on female migration has tended to focus on the migrant women's urban experience. For example, work on female migrants in a number of Latin American cities has described the incorporation of women into the urban economy (both in the informal and formal sectors) (Bunster and Chaney, 1984; Smith, 1971,1976; Young, 1978; Arizpe, 1980; Lowder, 1973); their demographic characteristics (Bunster and Chaney, 1984; Harkness, 1973; Smith, 1970; Macisco, 1972); and their social mobility (Harkness, 1973; Smith, 1973; Whiteford, 1978). Such an urban focus is misleading for a number of reasons. Firstly, the movement of women is seen as the amorphous group of individuals, a group defined solely in terms of gender, whereas women's social roles are differentiated according to class, cultural identity, age and marital status. All of these factors influence migration and labour market participation. Secondly, past work has completely neglected the position of women in the rural areas, from which the women migrate. Beyond the studies of male migrant's selectivity (Browning and Feindt, 1969; Balan et al., 1973) and a few studies which mention in passing the women left in the rural areas as their husbands migrate (e.g. Bourque and Warren, 1981; Laite, 1985), no systematic work has been carried out on the rural context for female migration. Furthermore, the implicit assumption in these studies is of an individual