Exploring Returnee Migrant Women, COVID-19 and Sustainability in Spain

The COVID-19 pandemic has signified an historical change in human mobility. By transforming the patterns of people on the move, it has highlighted gender-based inequalities and women’s vulnerabilities. The link between COVID-19 and return migration shapes returnees’ readaptation process in their home countries, as returnees are embedded in a limbo between the pandemic’s pressure on the policy and socio-economic setting, on one hand, and their efforts for reintegration, on the other. Due to the pandemic, the gender-based imbalance has increased existing gender gaps both in migration and return, exacerbating women’s vulnerability. Thus, personal aspirations and professional expectations of highly educated women are caught in a system of socio-economic and geographical (im)mobility, which represents the principal outcome in their relocation and readaptation process. Based on a qualitative methodology through the analysis of ten life histories of highly educated returnee migrant women, this paper sheds light on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on their migratory trajectories, providing a typology of them. Findings stress the necessity for more sustainable measures and resources for life–work balance and gender-sensitive policies, to promote a better integration process into the local labour market; to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on returnee women, and to prevent the proliferation of mental health problems among returnee women

Post-Traumatic Growth in Cancer Survivors: Narrative Markers and Functions of The Experience\u27s Transformation

The concept that a traumatic experience, such as a cancer, can lead to a positive change and transformation of self, life and relationships was named as post-traumatic growth (PTG). A large amount of research measured PTG in cancer survivors arguing an interpretation of the construct as an outcome. Recently, qualitative research shows different types of narrative of PTG, but the narrative markers and their functions of transformation remain still unclear. Within a mixed-method, we aim to highlight the narrative markers and their transformative functions, underlying the PTG, within 12 cancer survivors’ narratives with medium/high and medium/low level of PTG. A redemptive sequence analysis was carried out. In the narratives with high/medium PTG we find a specific transformative function on-thinking focused transformation founded on the change/expansion of the own internal criteria to interpret the relationship with the world centralizing the self in the present and future; in the narratives with medium/low PTG we find an on-acting focused transformation, founded on the change of the operational procedures aimed to live centered on the present and on its moments

Escritoras migrantes y movimiento social no organizado

La literatura intercultural escrita por mujeres migrantes se enmarca en la literatura testimonial con carácter universal, ya que dichas escritoras migrantes en sus escritos autobiográficos, semi-autobiográficos o de ficción, incluyen testimonios de procesos de transformación identitaria complejos derivados de la migración, que se reflejan en la vida de otras personas migrantes. Esta literatura testimonial tiene una dimensión socio-política y cultural clara, ya que es una literatura basada en las historias personales en el contexto socio-político del país de destino. En este caso, se interpreta a partir del proceso migratorio y del proceso de integración socio-cultural. Además, la literatura es considerada una forma de activismo socio-político por parte de las escritoras migrantes. La literatura testimonial se aborda aquí dentro de un repertorio de protesta, el repertorio de acción contestataria, como parte de otros movimientos sociales. Las preguntas que se quieren responder son las siguientes: ¿cuál es el posicionamiento socio-político y cultural de las mujeres migrantes escritoras? ¿Dicho género literario puede ser definido como marco de un nuevo movimiento social alternativo? En este artículo se analiza la forma de posicionarse de las escritoras migrantes en nuestras sociedades; así como las formas de desafiar las políticas migratorias con la participación desde abajo a través de la escritura y de la cultura como herramienta de reivindicación

Mujeres inmigrantes como “transformadoras de cultura”. Un método experimental para la transferencia intergeneracional de la identidad cultural.

This paper has a descriptive nature, based on an experimental work, and its main aim is to propose an alternative methodological tool, which is able to gather the principles of the traditional qualitative inquiry and socio-community intervention strategies. This method is suitable for exploring both immigrants’ cultural identity and transforming conflictive intergenerational dialogues (in the core of immigrants’ families) into constructive and positive intercultural dialogues, based on a learning process through the application of the appreciative approach. This paper describes the dynamic of the “life box” as a powerful transforming tool in a participatory action-research process carried out with immigrant women from different origin and located in the Basque Country. In migration studies migrant women are identified as “bearers” of human values and cultural identity. The main findings show that they also are “transformers” of culture, having an active role in the intergenerational dialogue

Identidades en tránsito: mujeres altamente formadas del Europa del Este en trabajos encajados en el País Vasco

The international migration is a changing process linked to both economic and socio-political transformations, which impact the migratory career of the women on the move. Migrant women, traditionally, are submerged in complex structure of power and oppression, which demand a de/reconstruction process of their personal and professional identities, and socio-political subject in action. In highly educated women, individual challenges for balancing personal, relational and professional aspirations are based on the interplay of different structures of opportunities and constrains. Thus, they have to apply different coping strategies to overcome barriers and access to new opportunities, in order to achieve a migratory project in line with their pre-migratory aspirations and professional identity profiles. By exploring not lineal migratory careers in highly educated women from East European countries at a macro (structures of opportunities and constrains), meso (networks), and micro (personal aspirations, imaginaries) dimensions, we seek to understand the way they achieve a job-education matching in the Basque Country socio-occupational context. Some findings show that structural problems and professional aspirations are inputs for emigration. In the Basque Country respondents experienced temporary overqualification and deskilling, during the first phase of immigration, due to structural barriers (homologation; work/resident permits; lack of knowledge of the language). The main strategies they use for labour market incorporation are “bridge-works” in gendered care and service sectors, mostly in moonlighting way; mixing study and work; and try to manage the homologation process. Other strategies are up-skilling; re-orientation of professional careers; or recapitalization of their personal and professional competencies. At micro level, resilience and biographical agency are stressed

Un análisis exploratorio de la transformación de la identidad de mujeres inmigrantes en el País Vasco. Hacia una conceptualización del “ser intercultural”

Los estudios sobre migración internacional y género se han abordado desde la perspectiva clásica meso-analítica, dejando al margen el nivel micro-analítico. Por ende, todavía no se ha ahondado lo suficiente en la esfera de la identidad personal dentro de las trayectorias migratorias. ¿Cuál es el impacto social de las migraciones a un nivel psico-social? ¿Cuál es su precio? Este estudio exploratorio tiene como objetivo el de reflexionar sobre los factores que influyen y determinan la transformación de la identidad transnacional de las mujeres latinoamericanas en el País Vasco, y profundizar en el desarrollo de su proceso de empoderamiento en destino. Se analizan quince entrevistas realizadas por el Observatorio Vasco de Inmigración. A la luz del análisis y de los resultados, se desarrolla una propuesta teórica para abordar la problemática de la identidad transnacional y la integración socio-cultural, desde una perspectiva relacional, interseccional, y con impacto psico-social

Highly Educated Women: Exploring Barriers and Strategies for Labour Integration in an Emotional Migratory Process

This article explores the barriers and the strategies of a group of highly educated foreign women to obtain a job–-education matching situation in the Basque Country (Spain) where they all permanently settled following a binational heterosexual marriage. Drawing on 21 biographical interviews with women from Latin America and Europe, we examine new perspectives on the complexity and fluidity between their professional pathways and family projects. For that, we apply an intersec-tional lens to analyse their life experience. Our results show that respondents involved in a feminised labour market (education and health) have fewer difficulties to find athe job– education match. In other cases, becoming self-employed is a way to gain independence and flexibility by running an open market-oriented business. Interviewees identified language, lack of personal networks, family reconciliation, traditional gender roles and the transferring of cultural capital as the main barriers for their incorporation into the labour market. The study finds that marriage support is not enough to overcome the barriers. We argue that for a more comprehen-sive un-derstanding of labour integration of highly educated migrant women, motivation and agency, linked to family support, should be considered factors to cope with structural inequalities

Geometry to Build Models, Models to Visualize Geometry

In the seventeenth century, Guarino Guarini, mathematician and architect, affirmed that architecture, a discipline that primarily deals with measures, relies on geometry: therefore, the architect needs to know at least its basic principles. On behalf of Guarini’s words, we designed a set of interdisciplinary teaching experiences, between mathematics (via a calculus course) and drawing (via our Architectural Drawing and Survey Laboratory courses) that we proposed to first-year under graduate students studying for an Architecture degree. The tasks concern mathematical and representational issues about vaulted roofing systems and are based on the use of physical models in conjunction with digital tools, in order to make the cognitive geometric process more effective, thus following a consolidated tradition of both disciplines

The Relationship between Healthcare Providers and Preventive Practices: Narratives on Access to Cancer Screening

: Cancer screening programs are public health interventions beneficial to early diagnoses and timely treatments. Despite the investment of health policies in this area, many people in the recommended age groups do not participate. While the literature is mainly focused on obstacles and factors enabling access to health services, a gap from the point of view of the target population concerns healthcare providers. Within the "Miriade" research-action project, this study aims to explore the dimensions that mediate the relationship between healthcare providers and preventive practices through the narrations of 52 referents and healthcare providers involved in breast, cervical and colorectal cancer screening. We conducted ad hoc narrative interviews and used theory-driven analysis based on Penchansky and Thomas' conceptualization and Saurman's integration of six dimensions of healthcare access: affordability, availability, accessibility, accommodation, acceptability and awareness. The results show that 21 thematic categories were representative of the access dimensions, and 5 thematic categories were not; thus, we have classified the latter as the dimension of affection. The results suggest trajectories through which psychological clinical intervention might be constructed concerning health, shared health decisions and access to cancer screening