Skip to main content

Psychosocial Well-Being, Erotic Agency, and Intimate Citizenship

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Ageing, Gender, and Labour Migration

Part of the book series: Mobility & Politics ((MPP))

  • 332 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter focuses on psychosocial well-being and explores Latvian women’s experiences of erotic agency and intimate citizenship in migration. These are aspects of citizenship rarely considered, where the usual focus is on political, economic, and social welfare citizenship. Rejecting their devalued role as economically inactive grandmother figures in Latvia, older migrants improve not only their economic well-being but also their subjective feelings about themselves, including their right to an intimate, romantic life. Theirs are stories of escape, freedom, and empowerment, despite their need to work hard to maximise income and pensions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Ahmad, A. N. (2009). Bodies that (don’t) matter: Desire, eroticism and melancholia in Pakistani labour migration. Mobilities, 4(3), 309–327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bacchi, C., & Beasley, C. (2002). Citizen bodies: Is embodied citizenship a contradiction in terms? Critical Social Policy, 22(2), 324–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baldassar, L., Baldock, C. V., & Wilding, R. (2007). Families caring across borders: Migration, ageing and transnational caregiving. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Baldassar, L., & Merla, L. (Eds.). (2014). Transnational families, migration and the circulation of care. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bondi, L., & Davidson, J. (2003). Troubling the place of gender. In K. Anderson, M. Domosch, S. Pile, & N. Thrift (Eds.), Handbook of cultural geography (pp. 325–344). London: Sage.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Cossman, B. (2007). Sexual citizens: The legal and cultural regulation of sex and belonging. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cvajner, M. (2011). Hyper-femininity as decency: Beauty, womanhood and respect in emigration. Ethnography, 12(3), 356–367.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dyer, S., McDowell, L., & Batnitzky, A. (2010). The impact of migration on the gendering of service work: The case of a West London hotel. Gender, Work and Organization, 17(6), 635–657.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1992). The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love, and eroticism in modern societies. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hakim, C. (2010). Erotic capital. European Sociological Review, 25(5), 499–518.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jurkane-Hobein, I. (2015). Do I qualify for a love relationship? Social norms and long-distance relationships in post-Soviet Latvia. Sexuality and Culture, 19(2), 388–406.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Le Feuvre, N., & Roseneil, S. (2014). Entanglements of economic and intimate citizenship: Individualization and gender (in)equality in a changing Europe. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, 21(4), 529–561.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lister, R. (2007). Inclusive citizenship: Realizing the potential. Citizenship Studies, 11(1), 49–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Longhurst, R. (2000). Corporogeographies of pregnancy: ‘Bikini babes’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18(4), 453–472.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lulle, A. (2014a). Time-space of possibilities: Translocal geographies of Latvians in Guernsey. Riga: University of Latvia, PhD thesis in Human Geography.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mai, N., & King, R. (2009). Love, sexuality and migration: mapping the issue(s). Mobilities, 4(3), 295–307.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, V. W., & Calasanti, T. (2007). Bodacious berry, potency wood and the aging monster: Gender and age relations in anti-aging ads. Social Forces, 86(1), 335–355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McDowell, L. (1995). Body work: Heterosexual gender performances in city workplaces. In D. Bell & V. Gill (Eds.), Mapping desire (pp. 67–97). New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDowell, L. (2005). Hard labour. Forgotten voices of Latvian migrant ‘volunteer’ workers. London: UCL Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDowell, L. (2007). Constructions of whiteness: Latvian women workers in post-war Britain. Journal of Baltic Studies, 38(1), 85–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McDowell, L. (2009). Working bodies: Interactive service employment and workplace identities. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ong, A. (1999). Flexible citizenship: The cultural logics of transnationality. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pateman, C. (1992). The patriarchal welfare state. In L. McDowell & R. Pringle (Eds.), Defining women: Social institutions and gender divisions (pp. 223–245). Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plummer, K. (2003). Intimate citizenship: Private decisions and public dialogues. St. Louis: Washington University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwanen, T., Banister, D., & Bowling, A. (2012a). Independence and mobility in later life. Geoforum, 43(6), 1313–1322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwanen, T., Hardill, I., & Lucas, S. (2012b). Spatialities of ageing: The co-construction and co-evolution of old age and space. Geoforum, 43(6), 1291–1295.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sheller, M. (2012). Citizenship from below: Erotic agency and Caribbean freedom. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Skultans, V. (1995). Neurasthenia and political resistance in Latvia. Anthropology Today, 2(6), 14–18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson, E. (2013). Learning to love again: ‘Broken families’, citizenship and the state promotion of coupledom. Geoforum, 49, 206–213.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright, K. (2012). International migration, development and human wellbeing. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Yuval-Davis, N. (1997a). Women, citizenship and difference. Feminist Review, 57, 4–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yuval-Davis, N. (1997b). Gender and nation. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yuval-Davis, N. (1999). The ‘multi-layered citizen’. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 1(1), 119–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yuval-Davis, N., & Anthias, F. (Eds.). (1989). Woman-nation-state. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Lulle, A., King, R. (2016). Psychosocial Well-Being, Erotic Agency, and Intimate Citizenship. In: Ageing, Gender, and Labour Migration. Mobility & Politics. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55615-8_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics