Understanding Gender and Migration

Overview

This module is an undergraduate elective module. It will address contemporary debates on migration and gender while contextualising migration as individual and collective cross-border movement, internationally. It focuses on the gendered dynamics of (im)migration while differentiating agency of men and women, problematising the notions of femininity and masculinity, speaking about LGTB people, and also looking at nation state power formations (e.g. pull/ push factors) that trigger and shape migration movements, historically. Students will be introduced to a range of relevant sociological and feminist theories advancing our understanding of gendered migration, and they will learn how state regulated (e.g. nation states as defining what is ‘legal’) migration changes across time. Topics include among others labour migration (e.g. immigration law; gendered citizenship and EU trans-border mobility), but also forced migration (e.g. gendered causes and experiences of asylum seekers/ and refugees).

Learning Objectives

* To develop students’ understanding of the feminist critique of Migration Studies and the ways Gender (& Ethnic) Studies influence this field of academic study and practice, especially since the 1970s.
* To understand the heterogeneity of gendered experiences of migration, including the contexts of individual, family-based and mass movements, and those in particular social spaces, for example, regional, rural and urban contexts.
* To understand the gendered implications of different ways of representing and responding to immigration.
* To engage critically with key debates regarding the gendered dimensions of concepts such as nation, agency, rights and belonging.

Skills

By the end of this course, students will have acquired the capacity to:
Understand and evaluate different conceptual approaches to the phenomenon of migration;
understand discourses on migration as historically situated and embedded in nation-state politics;
reflect sociologically on legal, political and social structure framing migration discourses in and beyond Europe;
understand the specific dynamics of gendered migration;
develop oral and written communication skills in presenting arguments on migration policy and debates with respect to different countries;
apply knowledge of gender and migration to various country case studies;
apply communication skills in order to disseminate research results effectively;
design and write up an essay on the topic of current gender & migration debates.

Assessment

None