women, migration and precarity

Abstract

This focus group took place at the Università di Napoli ‘L'Orientale’ and was structured around recent female migration patterns in the south of Italy. The discussion included academics, artists, and care workers. The condition of women migrants was seen as one of precarity in the two main contexts we discussed: work and places of encounter. In an effort to move away from the purely material dimension of migration and deal with its emotional and creative sides, many facets of the question of being away from home and creating a new home were fleshed out: expectations, defence mechanisms, nostalgia, stereotyping, racism, and multiculturalism. Participants raised a wide range of issues and proposed different perspectives which also point to larger tensions and challenges in gender and race relations.