Understanding Integration:

1

• Understanding Integration
• the case of female migrants
• Paper presented at the conference
• Gender and Migration
• Rhodos, 11th July 2008
• Maria Kontou
• Institute of Social Research at the J. W.
  Goethe-University, Frankfurt/Main

2

• The project
• Integration of Female Migrants in Labour Market
  and Society. Policy Assessment and Policy
  Recommendations (FeMiPol)
• A Specific targeted research project (STREP) in
  the 6th Framework Programme of the European
  Commission (2006-2008)
• The project partners
• Dr. Maria Kontos, Institut für Sozialforschung an
  der J. W. Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main,
  Coordinator
• Prof. Floya Anthias, Oxford Brookes University
• Prof. Mirjana Morokvasic, University of Paris X
• Prof. Giovanna Campani, University of Florence
• Dr. Mojca Pajnik, Peace Institute, Institute for
  Contemporary Social and Political Studies,
  Ljubljana
• Prof. Krystyna Slany, Jagiellonian University,
  Krakow

3

• The project
• The method of the project and the concept of
  integration
• How we operationalized the concept of integration
  on the case of the migrant women in domestic work
  and care

4

• The national cases
• North, South, Eastern Europe (new EU member
  countries)
• Sweden, UK, German, France
• Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus
• Poland, Slovenia

5

• The objectives of the project
• The FeMiPol project explores and analyses the
  impact of integration policies on the position of
  migrant women within EU countries in the last
  decade, and on this basis will formulate
  recommendations for appropriate policy that
  fosters their integration and produces greater
  social cohesion. A central assumption is that
  integration policies should attend to the agency
  of the persons involved. The analysis of
  integration processes therefore focuses not only
  on barriers for social integration and on their
  removal, but also on the migration and
  integration strategies and life plans of the
  female migrants.

6

• The method of biographical policy evaluation
• Document analysis of policies and their
  objectives
• Interviews with policy makers and administrators
  on implementation of policies
• Biographical interviews with female migrants
  Analysis of experiences and integration
  strategies
• Interaction analysis of encounters with social
  service officers based on narrative interviews

7

• The concept of integration emerging in arenas of
  negotiation of different interests
• The critique on the concept of integration
• Integration in what?
• (the society)
• In which spheres?
• (the indicators)
• A norm addressing migrants
• (the responsibility of integration is on the
  migrants)

8

• The concept of social integration in the FeMiPol
  project
• The level of citizenship rights
• The level of social recognition
• The concept of social integration has to be
• Agency-sensitive integration embedded in the
  social action
• Biographical action aware Ability for
  intentional action and realization of
  biographical plans
• Take into account the normativity of the concept
  what kind of society we want?
• Migration in globalized societies The multi
  contextuality of the integration processes in
  transantional migration
• Migration between policy and agency

9

Coexistence of social exclusion and social
integration processes Social exclusion of
migrant domestic workers lack of stable legal
status restricted or no mobility chances
deskilling, and family fragmentation
(transnational motherhood) Social Integration in
the margins processes of home making
integration in ethnic communities, and local
support from NGOs Claims for recognition and
appropriate conditions for integration
Coexistance of social exclusion and social
integration processes
10

• The meaning of the work place and the working
  conditions for integration processes the case of
  the care for the elderly I
• Conflicts and risks in the work place withdrawal
  of relatives from care, carrying sole
  responsibility for a task that should be
  conducted by a team
• Need for professionalization care work for
  elderly requires more than gendered womens
  skills, efforts of migrant women to achieve
  professional identity

11

• The meaning of the work place and the working
  conditions for integration processes the case of
  the care for the elderly II
• Professionalization requires a stable legal
  status the need for stable legalization
• Professionalization requires the deconstruction
  of domestic work as unskilled work
• The need for re-evaluation of care work

12

• The meaning of the work place and the working
  conditions for integration processes the case of
  the care for children
• Conflicts in the work place cultural
  differences about childrens upbringing that
  cannot be negotiated (power gap in
  communication)
• The need for professionalization transcultural
  care work for children requires more than
  gendered womens skills.

13

• The meaning of the work place and the working
  conditions for integration processes the case of
  the care for children
• Professionalization requires a stable legal
  status
• The need for stable legalization
• The need for re-evaluation of care work

14

• Integration means to be able to negotiate
  conflicts and problems in the work place

15

• Strategies of domestic workers in dealing with
  conflicts in the work place
• Professionalization strategies
• Exit strategies
• Changing employer
• Getting out of the live-in work arrangement
• Getting out of the domestic sector depends on the
  accessibility of other labour market sectors
• Entering other informal sectors of the labour
  market
• The trambolin effect

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The web page of the project

• www.femipol.uni-frankfurt.de