Gendered Migrations and Global Social Reproduction

Eleonore Kofman and Parvati Raghuram argue that social reproduction offers an insightful lens through which to understand gendered transformations in global patterns of contemporary migration. They suggest that focusing on a range of sites, sectors, and skills beyond those deployed in the literature on care can offer new insights into the relationship between production and reproduction across genders, and how these are being reconfigured in the Global North and South. Drawing on the revived interest in social reproduction in the last few years, Gendered Migrations and Global Social Reproduction suggests that the failure of social reproduction is not only an outcome but also a driver of global migration among different categories of migrants. Moreover, the gendered implications of skill selectivity in immigration regimes, along with class, race and nationality, produce new forms of inequality which influence the ability of individuals and households to benefit from migration and to improve the conditions of social reproduction.

Eleonore Kofman is Professor of Gender, Migration and Citizenship and Co-Director of the Social Policy Research Centre at Middlesex University, UK. She has published extensively on theoretical and policy-related aspects of gender and migration in Europe, especially on family and skilled migrants. She is co-author of Gender and Migration in Europe and co-editor of Gender, Generations and the Family in International Migration.

Parvati Raghuram is Reader in Human Geography at the Open University, UK and Director of the OpenSpace research centre. She has published widely on gender, migration and development. She is co-author of The Practice of Cultural Studies and Gender and International Migration in Europe, as well as co-editor of South Asian Women in the Diaspora and Tracing Indian Diaspora: Contexts, Memories, Representations. She is associate editor of the journal, South Asian Diaspora, and co-edits a Palgrave Pivot series, Mobility and Politics.