Gendered and Racialised Constructions of Work in Bureaucratised Care Services in Italy

Scholarship on migrant care work argued that we need to broaden our understanding of the international division of reproductive labour by incorporating into the analysis other agents of social reproduction besides the household such as the non-profit sector, the market and the State. In response to these debates, the article focuses on migrant labour within the bureaucratised care sector, by comparing Latin American and Eastern European women employed in social cooperatives proving home-based elderly care services in Italy. Ethnographic data are used to show how both the workers and the cooperatives’ managers negotiate racialised and gendered constructions of care work and skill. We argue that the dominant gendered and racialised perceptions of paid care as non-skilled ‘feminine’ work, which are at play in private employment, are activated in specific ways in the bureaucratised sector too. Bureaucratised care thus comes into sight as being in strong continuity with the traditional forms of care work, as far as the social construction of the job is concerned. However, it does represent a general improvement for migrant workers in so far as it allows them to achieve better living and working conditions if compared to live-in domestic service

Bureaucratized management of paid care-work

Paid elderly care-work in Italy: the case of not-for-profit private organizations, social cooperatives which provide domiciliary services and employ mainly migrant women in the cities of Milan and Reggio Emilia

Black Europe? : some views from Afro-Surinamese migrants in the Netherlands

Today, when comes to racism and ethnicity-based discriminations, the attention of European media and policymakers is predominantly on discriminations against Muslims, Roma and other minorities. Instead, the preoccupation of people who consider they are oppressed because of their skin colour generally remains without a response. This paper thus contributes to the discussion around the specificities of discrimination based on people’s skin colour, and what this means for society in general and, especially, for the people who experience it in person. These are also the concerns of the scholars who have elaborated the notion of a ‘Black Europe’ that I am choosing as reference framework with the aim of drawing attention to the question of blackness and to the way it affects the experience of migration to Europe. In order to do this, I will refer to the subjective experience of a group of women who migrated from Suriname to the Netherlands during the 60s and 70s. As I will show, this group shares the common self-identifications of Blacks and at the same time of postcolonial migrants – as was the case for many of those who migrated to Europe from former colonies. Moreover, these women have in common the fact that they found employment in the domestic work sector in the city of Rotterdam. Their memories are a small and yet significant example of the negotiations that Black migrants in Europe have made in order to resist the race-based discriminatory attitudes they encountered after their arrival

Gender, migration and globalisation: an overview of the debates.

What does it mean to talk about ‘gender’ in relation to migration? When confronted by this question, scholars and students who already know what ‘migration’ means are puzzled by how they should put this together with an equally vast realm of concepts and facts – those that consider what gender is . Or, to be more precise: what gender does . For this purpose, in this chapter I am providing an overview of what gender does to migration, illustrating some of the ways in which taking a gender perspective changes the way we understand the link between migration and globalisation, and how gender-based differ-ences and inequalities affect (and are affected) by global migrations.I will do this, first of all, by introducing the relevance of gender issues to migration debates, and thus speak of the ‘feminisation of migration’. This, I contend, can be seen at a quantitative and qualitative level. Therefore, the chapter delves into a specific dimen-sion of the feminisation of migration by taking the case of domestic and care workers to discuss issues such as the ‘international division of reproductive labour’ and the ‘global care chain’. In the second part of the chapter I offer an historical overview of the scholar-ship that has developed around the gender–migration–globalisation nexus in the last 40 years. At the end, I outline other possible directions for research in this fiel

Migration and domestic work

This open access short reader offers a systematic overview of the scholarly debate on the experiences of migrant domestic workers at a global level, in the past as well as in present time. It tackles the nexus between migration and domestic work with a multi-layered approach. The book looks into the issue of (paid) domestic work in migratory contexts by investigating the feminization of migration, thereby considering the larger framework within which this specific phenomenon takes place. The author explains notions such as the “international division of reproductive labor” or “global care chains” which emphasize the inequality in the way care and domestic tasks are distributed today between middle-class women in receiving nations and migrant domestic workers. Moreover, the book shows how women migrating to work in the domestic work and private care sector are facing a complex landscape of migration and labor regulations that are extremely difficult to navigate. At the same time, this issue also addresses employers’ households who cannot find appropriate or affordable care among declining welfare states and national workers reluctant to take the job, whilst legal regulations make difficult to hire a domestic worker who is a third country national. As such this book offers an interesting read to academics, policy makers and all those working in the field

Migration and Domestic Work

This open access short reader offers a systematic overview of the scholarly debate on the experiences of migrant domestic workers at a global level, in the past as well as in present time. It tackles the nexus between migration and domestic work with a multi-layered approach. The book looks into the issue of (paid) domestic work in migratory contexts by investigating the feminization of migration, thereby considering the larger framework within which this specific phenomenon takes place. The author explains notions such as the “international division of reproductive labor” or “global care chains” which emphasize the inequality in the way care and domestic tasks are distributed today between middle-class women in receiving nations and migrant domestic workers. Moreover, the book shows how women migrating to work in the domestic work and private care sector are facing a complex landscape of migration and labor regulations that are extremely difficult to navigate. At the same time, this issue also addresses employers’ households who cannot find appropriate or affordable care among declining welfare states and national workers reluctant to take the job, whilst legal regulations make difficult to hire a domestic worker who is a third country national. As such this book offers an interesting read to academics, policy makers and all those working in the field

Gender and Mobility across Southern and Eastern European Borders: "Double Standards" and the Ambiguities of the European Neighbourhood Policy

This article proposes a gendered critique of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), a policy framework that, amongst other things, aims to facilitate the mobility of migrants to the EU from the bordering countries. We highlight the ambivalences of European regimes of gender and migration, and we take issue with the celebration of the "feminisation of migration." The former fails to offer opportunities to women to safely embark on autonomous migratory projects, the latter contributes to reproduce traditional gender biases in the countries of origin as well as of destination. We conclude by suggesting that the EU critique to emigration countries for failing to tackle women's discrimination falls short of persuasiveness when confronted with the curtailment on women's independent mobility within the ENP framework

VULNER POLICY BRIEF: ITALY

EU law requires that the special reception needs of vulnerable asylum seekers be identified and addressed, and that special procedural guarantees be provided. Similarly, the UN Global Compacts for Migration and on Refugees require states to develop their migration and asylum policies in ways that consider the vulnerabilities that migrants and refugees may be facing. To this end, the Italian team of the VULNER project studied how vulnerable asylum seekers (and other vulnerable migrants) are identified, and how their special reception and procedural needs are assessed and addressed by the Italian asylum authorities. They examined legislation, case law, policy documents and administrative guidelines. They conducted 44 interviews with members of international organizations, civil servants and judges in Italy. This Policy Brief explores the findings of this research, highlighting the challenges and the shortcomings observed in Italy, as well as proposing concrete policy recommendations

10 Years After the Directive 2011/36/EU. Lights and shadows in addressing the vulnerability of trafficked and exploited migrants

a formal National Referral Mechanism (NRM) in place to identify and assist victims and support their full social inclusion. Assistance is nearly always dependent on victims’ cooperation with the authorities, in contrast with the principle of unconditional assistance. The non-punishment principle is not implemented or not implemented correctly. Also, trafficked persons are not addressed adequately regarding their vulnerabilities and their gender-related needs. Anti-trafficking institutions and organisations do not receive sufficient resources, and, in many countries, political and legal anti-trafficking measures tend to focus mainly on criminalisation and to conflate with restrictive migration policies, increasing persons’ vulnerability to exploitation. Many EU member states lack National Rapporteurs or fully independent equivalent mechanisms

Vulnerabilities and the Italian Protection System: An ethnographic exploration of the perspectives of protection seekers

The following research is part of the Horizon2020 project “Vulnerabilities under the Global Protection Regime. How does the law assess, address, shape, and produce the vulnerabilities of protection seekers?” (VULNER, GA 870845) and focuses on the Italian context. The first report (Vulnerabilities in the asylum and protection system in Italy), based on the research conducted in 2020, focused on the documentation and analysis of the existing legal and bureau- cratic mechanisms in place, to identify and assess the vulnerabilities among “protection seek- ers”, meaning all migrants seeking protection, regardless of the legal status they have eventually achieved.1 In this first report, we compared the ways in which Italian legislation and case-law approach vulnerabili- ties and how it arranges legal and bureaucratic instruments for recognition and protection, with the di- rect experience of legal experts and of those who, at different levels, make decisions on which situations of vulnerability can find effective legal recognition. On the one hand, our qualitative research deepened our understanding of the vulnerability assessment processes, as well as of the perspective of those who intervene in situations of vulnerability (decision makers, international organizations, legal actors, etc). On the other, the report highlights the effects of the transposition of these measures into concrete practices, both in terms of the most virtuous applications implemented in various territorial contexts and the dis- connect between “law on paper” and “law in practice.” In this second report, based on ethnographic research conducted in 2021, the focus shifts to the direct experiences of protection seekers and of those who work in close contact with them. Throughout the research, we investigated what opinion protection seekers as well as people working in reception and support services had about the protection system in Italy, both in terms of procedures and identification, protection, reception, and support measures provided for people in vulnerable sit- uations. The inclusion of an operational and “bottom-up” point of view made it possible to check, vali- date and integrate what emerged in the previous report. The fieldwork took place between April 2021 and February 2022. We conducted 64 in-depth interviews, ethnographic observations in several reception and support centers for migrant people, as well as multi- ple informal conversations with at least 200 people - including protection seekers and social workers. The work was carried out in two Italian regions (Veneto and Lazio) and it shed light on series of issues that cut across the two contexts – and thus are of national relevance – as much as on issues that were distinct to the local context. The research shows how it is essential to consider the complex issue of vulnerabilities related to migration experiences through qualitative research methods that go beyond quantitative data. The ethnographic approach chosen within the framework of this research made evident the importance of investigating the issue of vulnerabilities through a methodology capable of bringing out the heterogeneity of situa- tions, the social transformations taking place and the intertwining of several factors (personal, social, ge- 1 In line with the conceptual framework that guides the VULNER project, the category ‘protection seekers’ is conceived to also include migrants seeking protection but who do not necessarily fit the definition and requirements for applying for international protection. In the Italian context, we focus on migrants who are asylum seekers or having alternative types of protection (for instance related to human trafficking, gender-based violence, age, social inclusion, etc.), as well as on actual undocumented migrants whose applications on these grounds have been rejected. 4 Carnassale, D., Marchetti, S., 2022 ographic, situational). The qualitative approach shed light, from the perspective of those involved, on the impact of broader issues – such as the functioning of the protection system at the European and national level or the functioning of local services and administrations – on individual experiences. The research brings to light how situations of vulnerability may be understood differently by peo- ple seeking protection than by social workers and other legal and institutional actors, as well as how these situations may be pre-existing or become evident only at a specific moment in the mi- gration journey. The report devotes particular attention to how multiple situations of vulnerability are deeply connected to subjective conditions, migration trajectories, living conditions, and protection seekers’ agency. The research also shows how various situations of vulnerability can take on different meanings and forms depending on whether they are related to the country of origin, to the journey, to the arrival in Italy, to a long stay in the destination context, or to additional problems caused by having moved to other Euro- pean countries. One section of the report investigates how the reforms introduced in Italy between 2017 and 2020 on immigration law addressed protection seekers’ experiences of vulnerability, but also contrib- uted in fostering them. Ethnography made it possible to highlight the daily life experiences of people who live or have lived in highly precarious situations, or who experienced forms of control or institutional abandonment. The report highlights a number of critical issues that need to be addressed in the future. Indeed, the research results made evident how changes in regulations and their effects on procedures and re- ception services have had a profound impact on territories, services and protection seekers themselves. The research documented how regulatory actions have often had a vulnerabilizing effect on protection seekers, while they do not seem to have facilitated the identification, recognition and protection of many situations of vulnerability described by migrants interviewed. The picture that emerges from our work is that several vulnerabilities deemed particularly serious find formal but not necessarily concrete and material recognition, while others tend to be ignored or at least underestimated. This has a negative spillover effect both in the lives of migrant people and on the work of local services and administrations. Furthermore, we found out that, in recent years, several critical issues that already existed in the system worsened, while the inability to intervene adequately in favor of full recognition and protection of situations of fragility increased. In our view, it is therefore necessary to intervene at the institutional level and enhance the point of view of protection seekers and social workers, including those working in the non-profit sector