Economics/Women and Gender Studies 253, Spring 2010

GENDER AND MIGRATION

Professor Nina Banks

Class Time: M 2-4:52; Room: Coleman 151

Office Hours: TH 11-1 and by appt.; Office: Coleman 160

Course Description:  This course focuses on internal and international migration flows and the role of gender in these relocations.  It covers the topics of gendered motivations for and patterns of migration; economic restructuring and families; state policies promoting women’s migration in sending and receiving countries; transnational domestic laborers and sex workers; violence and migration; and effects of migration on women’s earnings, decision-making, and well-being.  The course analyzes different theoretical perspectives on these topics within economics and within other social science disciplines.  We will occasionally have immigrant women and men come to class to speak about their experiences. 

Text:

Ehrenreich and Hochschild, eds. 2002. Global Woman:  Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy.  New York:  Henry Holt and Company.

All other readings are on Blackboard.

Requirements: 

Exams – There will be one midterm and final exam.

Reaction Papers – Please write a reaction paper for one of the readings assigned for class each day.  These will include very brief summaries of the main points of each reading (a paragraph should do it).  Also, you should respond to the content of the reading.  What are some implications of the author’s argument?  How does the situation the author describes reproduce hierarchies and/or inequities?  In what way does the reading provoke you to think differently about the subject?  Do you have personal experience with the issues discussed in the reading?  If so, please discuss your experiences and how you reconcile those experiences with the reading.  Your reaction papers must also include a question that you will pose to the class (not me) for discussion.  Please frame your discussion question in such as way as to generate discussion rather than a factual, straight-forward answer.  (Of course, questions requiring factual information/clarity may also be included in your paper).  Please bring your reaction papers to each class since they will serve as a basis for discussion that day.  Each reaction paper should be 2 pages in length (double spaced and typed).  I will randomly collect your reaction papers throughout the semester and you will receive credit only for those that are turned in on time during class that day.  Reaction papers will help you take notes on readings as well as reflect on the topic and make connections between other ideas. 

Participation – Your grade for participation will be based on class attendance and as well as your contribution to class discussions.  The class is organized around shared, active learning, so it is important that you attend all classes and come to class prepared to discuss the readings.  Since class meets only once a week, an absence of more than 1 week will result in a grade reduction.

Group Project - You will have the opportunity to work with other students to lead a discussion on a case study of your choosing that ties in with the reading for your presentation date.  You should select a short case study that your classmates can read in class that day (no more than 15 minutes of reading time).  Short readings are often found in newspapers or in popular magazines and journals.  After your classmates read the case study, your group will organize a discussion of the reading.  For example, if your group presents during the week when we discuss domestic workers, you should bring in a short reading on an immigrant/migrant woman’s experience as a domestic.  Provide the class with background information on the economy in the woman’s home country as well as any other information that would be relevant to explaining her situation.  Your questions for discussion for the class should get them to think critically about the issues that underlie the immigrant/migrant woman’s experience.  You will be graded on the clarity and organization of your presentation, the relevance of your case study to the day’s readings, and the quality of your questions for discussion. 

Interview – You are fortunate to have a large number of women on campus who are immigrants in the U.S. while they are studying at the university.  You will have the chance to interview them and present your findings to me in a written report.  Your interview paper should be 5-6 pages in length, excluding the questionnaire that you develop for the interview.  More information will be provided on this project at a later date.  The interview project is due March 1^st. 

Grading:

Participation                 20%

Reaction Papers           15%

Group Presentation       15%

Midterm                       20%

Interview                      15%

Final Exam                   15%

Tentative Reading and Discussion Topics

Week

January 25        INTRODUCTION

February 1       THEORIES OF MIGRATION AND GENDER

Pessar, Patricia, “Engendering Migration Studies:  the Case of New Immigrants in the United States,” in Gender and U.S. Immigration:  Contemporary Trends, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Bodvarsson and Van den Berg, The Economics of Immigration, Chapt. 2:  “The Determinants of International Migration:  Theory,” pp. 27-57.

                                    Generate questions for guest speakers during class.

                                    Turn in information about the person you plan to interview.

February  8      GLOBAL ECONOMY, LABOR, AND MIGRATION     

Globalization and Jobs in Sending and Receiving Nations

                                    Film: Los Trabajadores

Sassen, Saskia, “Global Cities and Survival Circuits,” Global Woman.

Ozden and Neagu, “Immigrant Women’s Participation and Performance in the U.S. Labor Market,” in The International Migration of Women, Washington, D.C.: World Bank and Palgrave MacMillan, 2008.

Discussion of constructing questionnaires and conducting interviews

Testimonial by immigrant woman (3:30 pm)

February 15                 Reproductive Labor

Ehrenreich, Barbara, “Maid to Order,” Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy.

Bridget Anderson, “Just Another Job? The Commodification of Domestic Labor,” Global Woman.

Pei-Chia Lan, “Among Women:  Migrant Domestics and Their Taiwanese Employers Across Generations,” Global Woman.

Kofman, Eleonore, “Gendered Migrations and the Globalisation of Social Reproduction and Care:  New Dialogues and Directions,” in Gender, Migration and the Public Sphere, 1850-2005, Schrover and Yeo, eds. New York: Routledge, 2010. 

Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette and Ernestine Avila, “I’m Here, But I’m There: The Meaning of Latina Transitional Motherhood,” Gender & Society 11.5 (1997): 548+.

                                    Testimonial by immigrant woman (3:45 pm)

February 22                 Entitlements and Exclusions

Readings from Fujiwara, Lynn, Mothers without Citizenship:  Asian Immigrant Families and the Consequences of Welfare Reform.  University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Kofman, Eleonore, “Gendered Migrations, Livelihoods and Entitlements in European Welfare Regimes,” in New Perspectives on Gender and Migration:  Livelihood, Rights and Entitlements, Nicola Piper, ed., New York:  Routledge, 2008.

Eithne Luibheid, “’Looking Like a Lesbian’: The Organization of Sexual Monitoring at the United States-Mexican Border,” in Women and Migration in the U.S. Mexico Borderlands: A Reader, Segura and Zavella, eds., Durham:  Duke University Press, 2007.

                                    Group 1 presentation

March 1           Interview Projects Due; Film on Migration and Children: Under the Same Moon or Which Way Home

March 8           MIGRATION AND FAMILIES

Remittances, Families Left Behind, and Economic Development

Guzman et al, “The Impact of Remittances and Gender on Household Expenditure Patterns:  Evidence from Ghana,” in The International Migration of Women, Morrison, Schiff, and Sjoblom, eds., Washington, D.C.: World Banks and Palgrave MacMillan, 2008.

Sana, and Massey, “Household Composition, Family Migration, and Community Context: Migrant Remittances in Four Countries,” Social Science Quarterly, vol. 86, no.2, June 2005.

Salazar Parrenas, Rhacel, “The Care Crisis in the Philippines:   Children and Transnational Families in the New Global Economy,” Global Woman.

                                    Group 2 Presentation

March 22                     Migrating Families: Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Adaptation

Kibria, Nazli, “Migration and Vietnamese American Women:  Remaking

Ethnicity,” in Women of Color in U.S. Society, eds. Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thorton Dill, Temple University Press, 1994.

Banks, Nina, “Uplifting the Race through Domesticity: Capitalism, African American Migration, and the Household Economy in the Great Migration Era of 1916-1930,” Feminist Economics. 12(4), October 2006: 599-624.

March  29        Exam

April 5              FORCED MIGRATION

Human Trafficking and Forced Labor

Brysk, Alison. "Beyond Framing and Shaming: Human Trafficking, Human Security and Human Rights." Journal of Human Security 5.3 (2009): p. 8 (14).

Skinner, E. Benjamin. "The Fight to End Global Slavery." World Policy Journal 26.2 (2009): p. 33 (9).

Duong et al, “Transnational Migration, Marriage and Trafficking at the China-Vietnam Border,” in Watering the Neighbour’s Garden: The Growing Demographic Female Deficit in Asia, Attane and Guilmoto, eds., Paris: Committee for International Cooperation in National Research in Demography, 2007.

                                    Group 3 Presentation

April 12                        Gender and War

Hynes,  H. Patricia, “On the Battlefield of Women's Bodies: An Overview of the Harm of War to Women,” Women’s Studies International Forum, vol. 27, issues 5-6, November-December 2004, Pages 431-445.

Jackson, Lynette, “Where are the Girls?: War, Displacement and the Notion of Home Among Sudanese Refugee Children,” in Gender, Migration and the Public Sphere, 1850-2005, Schrover and Yeo, eds., New York:  Routledge, 2010.

Osorio Pérez, Flor Edilma, “Forced Displacement among Rural Women in Colombia,” Latin American Perspectives, Volume 35, Number 6 (November 2008), pp. 29-40.

                                    Testimonial(s) by Displaced Persons/Refugees

Group 4 Presentation

April 19            MIGRATION AND ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING

Masculinities

                                    Gamburd, Michele, “Breadwinner No More,” Global Woman.

Lewis, Linden, “Caribbean Masculinity at the Fin de Siècle,” in Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities:  Theoretical and Empirical Analyses, Rhoda E. Reddock, ed. Jamaica: University of West Indies Press, 2004.

                                    Guest Speaker: Professor Linden Lewis

Group  5 presentation

April  26                       Sex Work

Agustin, Laura, “Migrants in the Mistress’s House: Other Voices in the ‘Trafficking’ Debate,” Social Politics:  International Studies in Gender, State and Society, 12.1, 2005, pp. 96-117.

Brennan, Denise, “Selling Sex for Visas:  Sex Tourism as a Stepping-Stone to International Migration,” Global Woman.

Bales, Kevin, “Because She Looks Like a Child,” Global Woman.

                                    Group 6 Presentation

May 3              TRANSNATIONAL MARRIAGE AND IDENTITY

Schaeffer-Grabiel, Felicity, “Planet-Love.com: Cyberbrides in the Americas and the Transnational Routes of U.S. Masculinity,” Signs.  Winter 2006, vol. 31. 

Hung Cam Thai, “Clashing Dreams:  Highly Educated Overseas Brides and Low-Wage U.S. Husbands,” Global Woman.

Schaeffer-Grabiel, Felicity, “Cyberbrides and Global Imaginaries:  Mexican Women’s Turn from the National to the Foreign,” in Women and Migration in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: A Reader, Segura and Zavella, eds. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.

Group 7 Presentation