Gendered Aspects of Migration from Southeast Europe

The research aimed to study migration as a gendered experience through the narratives of the lives of immigrants and immigrants from Albania and Bulgaria. In the last two decades, the geopolitical space of South-Eastern Europe has been redefined in the light of the political developments of the post-communist period and the thickening of a series of political, economic and cultural exchanges. Increased cross-border mobility and the emergence of new social relations as well as forms of political subjectivity and communication play a leading role in this process.The research was based on 60 in-depth interviews with men and women of three age groups from Albania and Bulgaria, as well as ethnographic observations in the country of origin and host country and on visual material. Interview material was analyzed through an interdisciplinary perspective that explores the narrative strategies of immigrants and focuses in particular on three aspects of their lived experiences: integration, work and intercultural communication. The selection of gender as a key parameter for the analysis of the migration phenomenon was dictated by both social and scientific reasons. The "feminization" of immigration is a social phenomenon of the last two decades that has been highlighted by a growing number of social scientists. Although these immigrants are no longer as "invisible" as they were in the past, the real impact of this "feminization" of migratory flows has not been studied in depth. In our effort to fill this research gap, we have sought to broaden our perspective beyond a 'add women' and 'mix' (addwomenandstir) approach.Analyzing the ways in which men and women relate their lived experiences before and after migration, we aimed to better understand gender as an active social process. In particular, we sought to understand how the migration process restructured gender relations both within the immigrant communities and in relation to the host society. From this perspective we have also studied the role of migration in constructing new, often hybrid, but always gendered subjectivities.