Righteous patriots, corrupted élites, undeserving poors. The construction of multiple social boundaries in the National Front

Based on life histories of National Front activists, this article analyses how multiple boundaries - pertaining to ethnic and political, but also class and spatial divides - are constructed and negotiated in the party. Ethnicity and class shape the ways in which the activists identify with the party and accommodate the construction of political outsiders and ethnic Others forged by the party populist propaganda. The article thus contributes to the study of radical right-wing populist parties by considering the impact of ethnicity and class on activism and party membership

Caring for the elderly in the family or in the nation? Gender, women and migrant care labour in the Lega Nord

This article aims at gendering our understanding of populist radical right ideology, policy and activism in Italy. It does so by focusing on migrant care labour, which provides a strategic site for addressing the relationship between anti-immigration politics and the gendered and racialised division of work. Three arrangements and understandings of elderly care are analysed, whereby care work should be performed ‘in the family and in the nation’, ‘in the family/outside the nation’ and ‘in the nation/outside the family’. Party documents and interviews with women activists are used to show how the activists’ views and experiences partly diverge from the Lega Nord rhetoric and policy on immigration, gender and care work. The article locates populist radical right politics in the context of the international division of reproductive labour in Italy and suggests the relevance of analysing gender relations in populist radical right parties in connection with national care regimes

Caring for the Nation: Men and Women Activists in Radical Right Populist Parties 2012-2014. Final Research Report to European Research Council

No abstract available

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

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

Outsourcing elderly care to migrant workers: the impact of gender and class on the experience of male employers

This article, based on semi-structured interviews, addresses masculinity in the international division of reproductive labour through an analysis of the impact of gender and class on the outsourcing of elderly care services to migrant care workers. In the Italian context, characterised by a limited provision of long-term care services and by cash-for-care benefits, the strategies of men as employers of migrant care workers are shaped by class and gender. The outsourcing of care to migrant workers reproduces hegemonic masculinity in so far as male employers are able to withdraw from the ‘dirty work’. At the same time, men engage with tasks which are, in principle, kept at a distance. The employers’ family status, combined with their class background, are crucial factors in shaping the heterogeneity of men’s experiences as employers and managers of care labour, and the ways in which they make sense of their masculinity

Beyond ‘women’s work’. Gender, ethnicity and the management of paid care work in non-profit domiciliary services in Italy

Based on qualitative data, this article focuses on management practices in social cooperatives operating as non-profit providers of domiciliary care services in Italy. Their livelihood is eroded by the presence of migrant live-in care-givers, who are privately employed, inexpensive and often irregular. This competition is not only economic but also symbolic, as it jeopardises the managers’ attempts to define care work as a skilled job and reproduces notions of care as naturally feminine ‘women’s work’. The article analyses the strategies adopted by the managers in order to negotiate this competition, and shows how these challenge dominant gendered constructions of care work

Religione, genere e lavoro di cura. Il caso degli uomini migranti in Italia

No abstract available

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

Migrant masculinities in-between private and public spaces of reproductive labour: Asian porters in Rome

This article explores the construction of migrant masculinities in the context of reproductive labour. It focuses on Asian Christian men working as porters in upper middle-class residential buildings in Rome (Italy). This masculinised niche of reproductive labour combines differently gendered chores: feminised tasks (cleaning and caring) - mainly performed in the most private spaces of the home - and masculinised tasks (maintenance and security), carried out in the public or semi-public spaces of the buildings. The analysis addresses the dearth of studies on the sex-typing of jobs in the context of migrant men’s work experiences. It also contributes to ongoing debates on the geography of reproductive labour, by exploring how gendered practices of migrant reproductive labour construct private and public places. The construction of masculinities and place is shaped by the gendered racialisation of migrant men at the wider societal level, which materialises in the construction of ‘dangerous’ and ‘respectable’ urban areas. The article suggests that widespread concerns over religious difference and public security play a key role in defining migrant men’s access to the workplace and in shaping work relations