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Post-migration Wellbeing: The Case of Turkish-speaking Women in London, Dr Eleni Hatzidimitriadou
- 1. Post-migration wellbeing, community activism and empowerment: the case of Turkish-speaking women in London Dr Eleni Hatzidimitriadou Reader in Social Work Migration and the Right to Health, 26-27 May 2010
Editor's Notes
- Labour emigration from Turkey to industrially developed countries of North and Western Europe has been taking place since the early 1960s. These flows were mostly regulated by the Turkish and host country governments through bilateral agreements – with the Federal Republic of Germany in 1961; Austria, Netherlands and Belgium in 1964; France in 1967; and Australia in 1968. While, in the early years, the majority of Turkish migrants were men, more recently Turkish women also participate in the migration process as initiators, namely the first in their family to migrate, or as followers who join their husbands already abroad or migrate with them. Despite that women usually migrate as ‘dependants’ and are confined to specific sectors and income level in the host country’s labour market, their existence in the migration space is becoming more visible due to their rising numbers in international migration groups and their major role in labour migration (Kadioglu, 1997; Castles and Miller, 1998). Presently, in the European Union as a whole, women from Turkey comprise one of the largest groups of female non-nationals and they mainly reside in three countries: France, Germany and UK (Balding et al, 1997). In each of these national contexts, there are important and interesting distinguishing features. For example, Turkish migrant communities have been established the longest in Germany, from the 1960s, with already a third-generation population. In France and Britain they arrived later, mainly in the 1970s. The Turkish communities and their descendents is a fairly new ethnic minority group in the UK. Turkish arrival to the UK started in the 1970s as workers and was followed by refugees who were mostly Kurdish in origin in the 1990s. The estimated number of Turkish migrants based on the different sources ranges from 115,000 to 300,000 in London (Çiçekli, 1998; Yalcin, 2003). The Turkish community in the UK includes Cypriot Turks, Turkish people and Kurdish origin people from Turkey, and their socialisation takes place in a very restricted local community in particular boroughs of the Greater London area, characterised by multicultural environments and a history of social exclusion (Enneli, Modood, & Bradley, 2005). Within this community, there are also ‘new’ religious groups (Sunni and Alevi) who gained visibility and voice abroad and in the home country, questioning the ‘official’ Kemalist culture of secularity. Turkish migrant women living in Northern European countries are experiencing a number of social transformations and have a role to play in transmitting these values through transnational networks and return migration. It is important to examine more closely the experiences of these migrant women in order to evaluate how globalisation and cosmopolitanism is affecting their conceptualisations of citizenship rights.
- Until the 1970s, gender was regarded as irrelevant to explaining population movements and, where considered in migration studies, it was an ‘add-on’ category, mainly looking at differences of the two sexes, and, more particular, the ‘plight’ of women as the dependant and more vulnerable population. The widely shared assumption was that women would migrate to accompany or to reunite with their breadwinner migrant husbands (Mahler & Pessar, 2006). Patriarchy is a concept fundamental to this analysis. By patriarchy we mean hierarchies of power, domination and control that men exercise over women. Patriarchy gives men preferential access to resources available in society therefore it is bound to impact on women’s ability to migrate as well as their decisions of the time and final destination of migration. Power relationships in the household between men and women are also important when considering the impact of gender on migration. Thus, it is important to examine how women’s relationships to family members, including spouses, change with migration; in effect, how patriarchy is shaped or reconstituted after migration (Boyd & Grieco, 2003). According to Boyd and Grieco (2003), we can observe the impact of gender in three distinct stages of the migration process: the pre-migration stage, the transition across state boundaries, and the post-migration stage. In the pre-migration stage, gender is important in relations and hierarchies, status and roles and the structural characteristics of the origin country. During the transition stage, the impact of gender is evidenced in national policies, immigration laws and regulations, organised intermediaries, and international conventions. Finally, in the post-migration stage, the gender effect has to be acknowledged in the integration process: the impact of early status, patterns of incorporation into the labour market, and the impact of migration on social status. For women in particular, there are two broad aspects of status that can change due to migration process: their position within their families and the impact of moving from one form of gender stratification system to another. Kofman argues, for the analysis of migration it is important to take into account the intersection of class, gender and race among the most significant social divisions. State regulations such as immigration rules force the migrant into a category, as for example the female migrant who enters through a family-related route and becomes the dependant of a male migrant. Also, segmentation of labour, according to which women occupy domestic labour, care and sex work while men occupy “the commanding heights of the knowledge economy and society”, overlooks the opening up of skilled employment for migrant women, often in feminised sectors like education and health.
- It is through these discourses of ‘racial’, ethnic and national otherness rather than through sexual difference, that the antagonism between the ‘European’ and the ‘other’ woman is emphasised. In this binary the European woman serves as the standard against which to measure women from elsewhere. Muslim women are constructed as the prototype of migrant women perceived as miserable victims par excellence, handicapped by their culture of origin. In analysing the situation of Muslim migrant women, one generally encounters an image of Western women as triumphant in the realisation of equal rights and social equality, The common assumption underlying this comparison is that female autonomy is generally absent from Muslim culture and through this process of ‘standardisation’ European women become the yardstick of excellence, idealised as straightforward and independently successful beings whose gendered life has been freed of major contradictions and ambivalence (Lutz, 1997) Muslim women as well as numerous ‘other others’ are portrayed as a particular kind of deviation from ‘European’ femininity An implication of New Labour’s and Third Way’s politic is the emphasis that the experience of the users of the welfare services and their own definition of their needs is central to the organisation and delivery of welfare services.
- As a distinct group, women moving from developing to developed countries have to deal with questions of autonomy and choice due to changing socio-economic circumstances and host country’s restrictive immigration policies. Complex gendered stratification both in sending and receiving countries impacts on their social status and roles, citizenship rights, their access to welfare state systems and subsequent sociospatial positions they occupy respectively in origin and host societal milieus (Castles and Davidson, 2000; Donato et al., 2006). For example, the phrase ‘feminisation of migration’ typically depicts the particular impact of women’s movement from developing countries rather than from developed ones, i.e. the migrant female worker carrying out the housekeeping or childcare responsibilities of a native middle-class female professional. Hence, the feminising of migration is a direct outcome of increasing female labour force participation in receiving countries. It is also linked to subsequent social transformations in the roles of women in the developing countries as they assume main breadwinner responsibilities, obtain economic power and engage in socio-political activities in their male dominated societies. Globalisation is another layer of analysis to be considered in the discussion of women and migration. It encourages mobility and is one of the major driving forces behind contemporary migratory movements. Growth of cross-border flows of investment, trade, culture, ideas and people as well as proliferation of transnational networks are among the most powerful characteristics of this phenomenon, which results in increased transnationalism of behaviours, social conventions and institutions. The globalisation of migration has been identified as another central tendency of major significance in future population movements by Castles and Miller (2003); it does not equate though with a straightforward transmission of values and beliefs that promote gender equality and women’s rights. In fact, it is increasingly noted that globalisation of migration may be achieving nothing more than sustaining female oppression by allowing the economic exploitation of poor women from developing countries in favour of global corporate interests and the liberation of women workers to enter the labour market in developed countries (Lutz, 2002). Yet, globalisation also enables female migrants from traditional environments to become familiar with new norms regarding women’s rights and opportunities in a cosmopolitan context. The effect of globalisation on issues of welfare is still to be examined more systematically in relation to different types of human mobility (Ndiaye, 2004). In this new reality, migrant women may become vulnerable to exploitation and abuse but at the same time may develop empowering new identities and lifestyles. s the feminisation of migration is gaining ground and becomes more evident worldwide, issues related to welfare policy and support systems for this migrant group come to the fore for policy makers, service providers, and recipients of welfare services. All too often, researchers and analysts in this field tend to represent migrant women as passive victims of male exploitation at different levels of economy, family life and social status. While this is true for a considerable number of women, it is also important to acknowledge the social transformations taking place in their lives as migrants. Inter-related societal factors such as class, gender and race determine issues of social inclusion and integration in the receiving countries. To examine the intersection of these structures on women migrants’ experiences and needs, we must begin by acknowledging the diversity of this experience and need. Most of research and analysis related to migrant women is focussed on economic and legal aspects of their experiences whereas little is said about their interaction with welfare systems in the receiving country.
- Although this was a convenience sample rather than a representative one, efforts were made to ensure that participants reflected the variety of migration experience, areas of settlement, and socio-economic status of Turkish women living in London. Methodology and survey findings related to women’s physical and mental health difficulties as well as their experiences with service providers in the UK are discussed elsewhere (Çakir, Hatzidimitriadou & Aydin, forthcoming; Çakir & Hatzidimitriadou, 2006). It is worth noting that survey participants indicated that they faced more physical and mental health problems since arriving in the UK (physical health problems: before migration - 19.7%; after migration - 47.7%; mental health problems: before migration – 12.9%; after migration – 45.5%). For the purposes of this paper, I will focus my discussion on findings from the open-ended questions related to women’s views about life in the UK – difficulties of adjustment, needs, likes and dislikes of British life, experiences of discrimination and their expectations and plans for the future.
- First, these women experience considerable cultural distance between Turkish and British societies in terms of values, principles, lifestyle, daily life and physical environments. The cultural distance, which is felt as a significant adjustment difficulty, is also a strong dislike for a lot of these women. They feel uncomfortable in an individualistic and materialistic society which suffers from lack of moral values, crowded places and crime.
- Yet, a significant number of them identify freedom as the main attraction to their new country and their new way of life. This freedom is understood at many levels – personal, social, religious, financial - and denotes a break from social norms and expectations in the sending country and a liberated way of life in their new country. Their newly acquired access to social and human rights as well as gender equality is another dimension highlighted in their conceptions of British life. Again, this is a striking difference from their previous experiences in Turkey and it suggests a new form of citizenship, based on ascribed rights and systems of law and social norms.
- Of relevance to this contrast between the sending and receiving country is also their preference of an orderly UK system and a clean, tidy environment with an attractive lifestyle of good economic conditions and high living standards. This comes to a contrast with the Turkish environments where they used to live. Also, it appears that the women enjoy the British multicultural environment as being more tolerant, diverse and cosmopolitan. These elements are far more important for these women than the most stereotypically expected pull factors of welfare benefits and care provision.
- Qualitative approach – focus groups; short questionnaire on demographics and membership details; interview with group leader/facilitator; analysis of printed/electronic material