Helma Lutz

Gender in the Migratory Process

This paper argues for treating gender as a key category in the understanding of migratory processes. Starting with an illustration of the absence of women in mainstream migration research, it presents the debate on this phenomenon and its development from a focus on women to one on gender. Through discussion of the debate on current migration phenomena it is demonstrated how gender can be used in a conceptual framework which includes various levels (micro, meso and macro). The paper advocates the analysis of migratory processes within a broader framework of social change.

At your service madam! the globalization of domestic service

abstractThis article deals with the question of new domestic servants. It sets out to describe a ‘new’ phenomenon manifesting itself all over Europe, that is the comeback of domestic workers and carers for children and the elderly in many households. It then proceeds to explain the establishment of an informal labour market in the private sector, which arises amid todays revolution of information technology.Research sources on the current situation are scarce compared to historical studies. This is particularly true for Germany and even more for the Netherlands. The present situation differs from its earlier appearance mainly in that domestic workers today are migrant women from Eastern Europe, from Asia or South America.The article aims to show how studying this phenomenon raises relevant questions both on an empirical and a theoretical level for gender studies as well as for migration studies. It pleads in favour of an intersectional analysis by taking into account class, gender and ethnic differences within the context of globalized labour markets and transnational migration movements.

The Limits of European-ness: Immigrant women in Fortress Europe

This article is intended to contribute to the ongoing debate on the ideological, social and political formation of a New Europe. By focusing on the position of immigrant women it examines the gendered nature of the changing configurations of cultural and social European landscapes. Two features of immigrant womens positioning are the key issues of this analysis: regulations through national and European law and ideological representation. It is argued that the debate on European citizenship should be closely linked to the question of formal and substantive and also of symbolic rights. Moreover, feminists, when using the concept of difference in this context, should be aware of the power structures underlying differentiated social positions in society. European-ness will lose its exclusive character only if it provides a solid place in the symbolic order of Europe for immigrants.

Care Work Migration in Germany: Semi-Compliance and Complicity

In this article, we deal with contradictions and paradoxes of the German policies on migration and domestic care work. Although the demand for care workers in private homes is increasing, the German government has turned a blind eye to the topic of migrant care workers. As a result of the mismatch between demand and restrictive policies, a large sector of undeclared care work has come into being. This veritable ‘twilight zone’ can be coined an ‘open secret’ as it is the topic of extensive discussions among the populace and in the media. We will address various discrepancies in the debate on migrant domestic work in Germany by providing a view from multiple actors’ perspectives. Examining the intersections of gendered migration and care regimes, we assert that undeclared care migration is an integral part of German welfare state policies, which can be characterised as compliance and complicity.

Crossing Borders and Shifting Boundaries

New forms of migration and their gendered dynamism suggest fundamental changes around the turn of the millennium. New flexible forms of migration are increasing and transnationalism is becoming a marked trend. Female migration is no longer invisible but recognised as an important phenomenon in scholarly research and in policy making. The high percentages of women in labour, refugee, educational or marriage migration are believed to constitute a new trend. While this is a flawed view because women have always participated in migration movements, the focus on the gender dynamics of these developments is indeed new. Gender relations are now seen as fluid and changing: In the past, female migrants have been portrayed as symbols of national or traditional culture, expressed in clothes and body postures, or as representatives of different moral norms and life-styles, of chastity or communalism. However, in transnational communities young women and men are nowadays developing new flexible and syncretistic identities. Over the last years scholarly debates have redrawn the boundaries around the andocentric and national understanding of migration and have integrated gender as a core concept. Scholarly work shifted from describing women as passive objects or victims of migration structures to viewing them as social actors who conceive and follow strategies of their own in often difficult and complex situations. In short: Gender is interwoven with migration and gendered migration is on the move.

Introduction: Domestic and Care Work at the Intersection of Welfare, Gender and Migration Regimes: Some European Experiences

Research over the last decade and more, has documented a resurgence of paid domestic and care labour (that is, work performed for pay in private households, such as household cleaning and maintenance and care for elders/disabled/children) across the Global North. 1 Much of the research has revealed the increasing reliance on migrant , as opposed to home-state, domestic workers, and it has been suggested (Lutz, 2007: 4) that domestic and care work has contributed more than any other sector of the labour market to one of the key features of the ‘age of migration’ (Castles and Miller, 2009) – its feminisation. At the same time though, as Lintons (2002) research on immigrant-niche formation in the USA suggests, the availability of immigrants in itself, has probably contributed to the growth of the sector.

Differenzen über Differenz — Einführung in die Debatten

Angenommen, Sie interessieren sich fur das Thema Differenz — es ist schlieslich in aller Munde. Sie suchen relevante Literatur, geben den Begriff als Suchkategorie in die Lieferverzeichnisse des Buchhandels ein und reduzieren die Suchumgebung auf den deutschsprachigen Raum, dann rollen Ihnen heute (2000) etwa 275 Titel entgegen. Sie stellen fest, dass sich der Begriff Differenz als Schlagwort in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Debatte etabliert hat und dass die Bandbreite der verfugbaren Titel erstaunlich ist. Das heterogene Feld umfasst sowohl die Betrachtung von Identitat und Differenz bei Hegel, Heine oder Takanaki als auch die Auseinandersetzung mit geschlechtsspezifischen, sexuellen oder kulturellen Differenzen und schlieslich den Disput uber nationale oder systemische Differenzlinien. Diese Bedeutungsvielfalt, die sich unter dem Titel „Differenz“ summiert, reicht von der Erorterung von Ethik und Moral in verschiedenen Zeitepochen bis zur Beschreibung von Erfahrungen mit verschiedenen Supervisionskulturen in den unterschiedlichsten Regionen und Arbeitsgebieten.

The New Migration in Europe: Contexts, Constructions and Realities

Over the past few years there has emerged an impressive array of academic literature on migration in the European context. A theme which unites much of this writing is that recent migration has a character which distinguishes it from earlier migration, and the generic term ‘new migration’ is now widely applied.

Life in the Twilight Zone: Migration, Transnationality and Gender in the Private Household

According to Manuel Castells, ‘the control of the state over time and space is being increasingly outmanoeuvred by the global flows of capital, goods, services, technology, communication and information’ (Castells 2002, p. 259). With this he begins a treatise about the increasing powerlessness of the state in relation to its traditional tasks and the specific transformation of the welfare state. This article is concerned with the hitherto neglected process of the transnationalisation of care services which, in addition to the global flows described by Castells, also requires the transnational movement of people. With the immigration of foreign domestic workers it is possible to observe a development relating to the acceptance and acceptability of deregulation in the everyday conduct of life, which in this form—at least in Germany—is quite new. As a result, there is a lack of analysis of domestic work as a social phenomenon. In this article, I wish to present first of all the extent and the shape of domestic work and of those involved in this sphere: domestic workers, the new servants; after that I will focus on three aspects which we are currently researching in our project Gender, Ethnicity and Identity. The Question of the New Servants in the Era of Globalisation (viz www.uni-muenster.de/FGEI, and Lutz 2002a,b,c); (a) domestic work as a potential space for illegal/ illegalised workers; (b) coping with illegality; (c) the transnationalisation of the private household.

Differenz als Rechenaufgabe: über die Relevanz der Kategorien Race, Class und Gender

Die Amerikanerin Donna Haraway stellt in ihrem Buch „Symians, Cyborgs and Women“ Folgendes fest: „It has seemed very rare for feminist theory to hold race, sex/gender, and class analytically together — all the best intentions, hues of authors, and remarks in prefaces notwithstanding. In addition, there is as much reason for feminists to argue for a race/gender system as for a sex/gender system, and the two are not the same kind of analytical move. And, again, what happened to class? The evidence is building of a need for a theory of ‘difference’ whose geometries, paradigms, and logics break out of binaries, dialectics, and nature/culture models of any kind. Otherwise, threes will always reduce to twos, which quickly become lonely ones in the vanguard. And no one learns to count to four“ (Haraway, 1991, S.129).