Worker-Mothers on the Margins of Europe

Download or read book Worker-Mothers on the Margins of Europe written by Leyla J. Keough and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Unravels complex gendered moral economies that guide migratory practices and choices of female domestic workers from Gagauz Yeri to Istanbul.” —Olena Fedyuk, Anthropology of East Europe Review Following Moldovan women who “commute” for six to twelve months at a time to work as domestics in Istanbul, Worker-Mothers on the Margins of Europe explores the world of undocumented migrants from a postsocialist state. Leyla J. Keough examines the gendered moral economies that shape the perspectives of the migrants, their employers in Turkey, their communities in Moldova, and the International Organization for Migration. She finds that their socialist past continues to color how the women view their labor and their roles within their families, even as they are affected by the same shifts in the global economy that drive migration elsewhere. Keough puts scholarship on gender and migration into dialogue with postsocialist studies and offers a critical assessment of international anti-trafficking efforts. “Anyone interested in the phenomenon of migration, particularly the gender dynamics of international migration and the politics of ‘trafficking’ in an era of globalization, will find this book an invaluable contribution . . . This is ethnography at its best.” —Kristen Ghodsee, Bowdoin College