Changing Paradigms in Migration Studies: From Men to Women to Gender

Abstract

Over the last four decades, research hasmoved from the discovery of immigration, initially conceptualised largely as a story of male workers, to a discovery of female migrants. Consideration of their productive and reproductive work and closer attention to the gender composition of migration streams have become increasingly important aspects of migration studies. Using as examples the United States and France, two major historical sites of labour immigration, I aim to ask questions of both the history and the historiography. The changing epistemologies of gender studies today can bring yet new questions and answers to the field, notably about who came, how men and women immigrants have been perceived by state, society and historians. But the gender question also means, importantly, asking about the before and after of migration. How have gender regimes in the countries of origin affected emigration and how has immigration affected gender relations? Chapters © 2013 The Authors. Book compilation © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.