Katja Schikorra

Female migration didn’t play an important role in the social science for a long time. Their role in the widefold processes of migration had been pointed out more only in the last years. „Feminization of migration”-thesis came up. Not only a quantitative rise of the female part in the migration process is denoted here, also and of far more concern, new female forms of migration are touched. Circular labour migration and transnational ‘shuttle migrations’ come into view.
The focus of the project deals with this, especially with  the group of female migrants from Eastern Europe who work in german households for private care of elderly and sick persons. Different from conventional groups of migrants, female shuttle migrants don’t move from one place to an another: their migration-process ‘last’, they don’t really give up their life in their state of origin, nevertheless they live and work abroad. These women, with their specific-cultural constructions of space, meet men and women with routines of other specifics in contexts of space, technology and gender.  Dealing with this in theory, Space, technology and gender are understood as a complex of reciprocal influenced categories.
The following question will be answered: How female shuttle migrants in the private care-sector change arrangements of space in negotiation with their employers and the structures of the host state? This main question will be itemized in separate questions: Which hegemonic structures characterize these new forms of space? Which technologies are important in this spaces and how do they coin and constitute space? Which dimensions of space are gendered? Which specific structures in the dimension space show up on the field of private care?