Migration, Gender and National Identity

The Author: Ana Bravo-Moreno was born in Brussels, migrated to Madrid at the age of seven and to London in her early twenties. Her background is in philosophy (BA Hons, Universidad Autónoma, Madrid), social anthropology (MSc University College London), women’s studies and social anthropology (Ph.D. Institute of Education, London). She has worked at the Open University and City University in London and has been a Research Fellow at the Institute of Migration Studies in Madrid. At present she is a Research Lecturer at the University of Granada.

Contents: Approaches to international migration, immigrant women and identity - The shaping of gender and national identities before migration - Views on femininity in different social classes - Approaches of governments, church and families on Spanish migration to the UK: British and Spanish economic and foreign policies - Women's subversion of official channels of migration - Narratives of Spanishness, Englishness and foreignness in different social classes - Generational contrasts: effects of education and marriage on the shaping of national and gender identities in England - National gendered identity and the household - Migration as an uprooting experience - Common themes in gender and national identifications - The engendering process of women's national identities - Tendencies against commonalities in respondents' identifications - Historical continuity of identifications - Tendencies disrupting historical continuity in respondents' identifications - Migration as a learning journey.

«The book contributes to the field of migration studies in three important ways: firstly, it improves our understanding of Southern European migration to England (an area neglected due to the emphasis on the race/colour of migrants); secondly, it illuminates the area of service jobs (an area often neglected due to its association with women's work); and thirdly, it showcases the value of personal narratives to understand migration (a qualitative approach usually neglected due to the emphasis on statistics). [...] this book improves our understanding of migration, provides an excellent illustration of the dynamic interplay of social structure and individual agency, and raises an interesting issue for future research: the place of emotions in the production of national identity and its relation with language.» (Benito Cao, Social Identities)
«[Esta investigacion] se muestra como una de las vías con mas futuro de la antropologia sociocultural. [...] [La autora utiliza] unas categorías analiticas y descriptivas que (...) tienen una carga de audacia teorica en el contexto de explicación y descripción del discurso. [...] En el analisis de las narrativas hay gestos tecnicos hermeneuticos dignos de atención (...). La autora se esmera en (re)construr contextos historicós (...) [que consiguen] una vision transgeneracional y transhistorica de valores culturales que permite contrastar y comparar las experiencias de estas mujeres sin perder la sensibilidad humana y capacidad de abstracción teorica.» (Guillermo Alonso Meneses, Migraciones Internationales)