“Careers” Transnational Links: The  Ambivalence of Immigrant Remittances

Mara Tognetti Bordogna; Annalisa Ornaghi

doi:10.4236/jss.2014.21016

Home > Journals > Business & Economics | Social Sciences & Humanities > JSS

JSS> Vol.2 No.1, January 2014

Share This Article:

“Careers” Transnational Links: The Ambivalence of Immigrant Remittances ()

Abstract Full-Text HTML

Download as PDF (Size:646KB) PP. 170-177

DOI: 10.4236/jss.2014.21016 3,315 Downloads 4,924 Views

Author(s) Leave a comment

Mara Tognetti Bordogna, Annalisa Ornaghi

Affiliation(s)

Department of Sociology and Social Research, Faculty of Sociology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy.

ABSTRACT

Recent studies on international migration have paid special attention to the transnational perspective, a new branch of the sociology of migration studying the process through which migrants build social fields that link the countries of origin and destination. The economic transnationalism connected to the great phenomenon of remittances—financial, material or immaterial—is one relevant aspect of this field of study. Remittances are ambivalent because they can be interpreted either as a medium of consolidation of transnational ties or as a bond linking migrant women to the country of origin. Our target is, in fact, those migrant women who carry out in Italy a particular work of care: the badanti, or informal caregivers. As such, they constitute an important resource of the Italian welfare system, characterized as it is by an important family component. Any migratory phenomenon is, by nature, complex and dynamic, with different historical, economic and social characteristics. Moreover, it operates changes at many levels. The caring work done by badanti, as well as the transnational links represented by cross-border remittances, takes place and must be read within this broader dynamics. The research question for this paper is (exactly) that whether remittances are mainly bonds or mainly ties for badanti, relative to other migrant workers employed in the care sector. We use qualitative and quantitative data from the Prin 2004 research project¹ concerning nationality, gender and class in new house holding work in Italy. After describing this phenomenon and its peculiarities, we shall analyze the mechanisms that originate it, and establish correlations with the surrounding context.

KEYWORDS

Transnational Connections; Care; Badanti; Remittances

Cite this paper

Bordogna, M. and Ornaghi, A. (2014) “Careers” Transnational Links: The Ambivalence of Immigrant Remittances. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2, 170-177. doi: 10.4236/jss.2014.21016.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	Caritas and Migrantes (2012) Immigrazione. Dossier statistico 2012. Nuova Antarem, Roma.

[2]	Tognetti Bordogna, M. (2004) Dal lavoro di cura alle nuove politiche sociali: Le badanti. In: Bernardotti, M. and Mottura, G., Eds., Immigrazione e Sindacato. Lavori, Discriminazione e Formazione, Ediesse, Roma, 68-76.

[3]	Tognetti Bordogna, M. (2012) Donne e percorsi migratori. Per una sociologia delle migrazioni. Franco Angeli, Milano.

[4]	Ambrosini, M. (2008) Separate e ricongiunte: Famiglie migranti e legami transnazionali. www.caritas.it

[5]	Morokvasic, M. (1999) La mobilité transnationale comme ressource: Le cas des migrants de l’Europe de l’Est in “Cultures et Conflits”, No. 33-34.

[6]	Kofman, E., Phizacklea, A., Raghuram, P. and Sales, R. (2000) Gender and international migration in Europe. Employment, welfare and politics. Routledge, London.

[7]	Mingione, E. (1997) Sociologia della vita economica. Carocci, Roma.

[8]	Vietti, F. (2010) Il paese delle badanti. Meltemi Editore, Roma.

[9]	Piperno, F. (2008) Migrazioni di cura: L’impatto sul welfare e le risposte delle politiche. Working Papers 40, Cespi.

[10]	Ehrenreich, B. and Hochschild, A.R. (2003) Global woman: Nannies, maids and sex workers in the new economy. Macmillan, London.

[11]	Moressa, F. (2011) Le rimesse in Italia nel 2010. Analisi e mappatura dei flussi monetari in uscita dall’Italia. http://www.cestim.it/

[12]	World Bank (2008) Migration and remittances. Factbook 2008. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Washington DC.

[13]	Birks, J.S. and Sinclair, C.A. (1980) International migration and development in the Arab region. ILO, Geneve.

[14]	Buch, C.M., Kuckulenz, A. and Le Manchec, M.H. (2002) Worker remittances and capital flows. Working Paper, Kiel Institute for World Economics, Washington DC.

[15]	Solimano, A. (2005) Remittances by emigrants: Issues and evidences. UN-ECLAC, Washington, Brookings Institution Press.

[16]	Tognetti Bordogna, M. (2010) Rimesse e relazioni transnazionali, presentazione workshop Migrazioni e rimesse: Identità, consumi e investimenti, Parma 30 settembre—1 ottobre 2010 cicl.

[17]	Ambrosini, M. (2005) Dentro il welfare invisibile: Aiutanti domiciliari immigrate e assistenza agli anziani. In: Studi Emigrazione, XLII, n. 159.

[18]	Castles, S. and Miller, M.J. (1998) The age of migration. International population movements in the modern world. MacMillan Press LTD, London.

[19]	Parreñas, R.S. (2001) Servantes of globalization. Women, migration and domestic work. Stanford University Press, Stanford.

[20]	Baldassar, L. (2007) Transnational families and aged care: The mobility of care and the migrancy of ageing. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33, 275-297. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691830601154252

[21]	Diminescu, D. (2005) Le migrant connecté. Pour un manifeste épistémologique. Migrations Societé, 17, 275-292.

[22]	Tognetti Bordogna, M. and Ornaghi, A. (2010) Le phénomène des badanti in Italie: Caractéristiques et spécificitées. In: Italies Revue d’études italiennes, n. 14.

[23]	Tognetti Bordogna, M. and Ornaghi, A. (2012) The “Badanti” (informal cares) phenomenon in Italy: Characteristics and peculiarities of access to the health care system. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 33, 9-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2012.633312

[24]	Sassen, S. (2002) Global networks, linked cities. Routledge, New York.

[25]	Tognetti Bordogna, M. (2012) Badanti and the changing role of the Italian welfare regime. In: Saarinen, A. and Calloni, M., Eds., Building a New Europe? Women Migrants from the Easterm Transregions, Kikimora-University of Helsinki, Helsinki, 51-63.

[26]	Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L. and Blanc-Szanton, C. (1992) Towards a transnationalization of migration: Race, class, ethnicity and nationalism reconsidered. The Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 645, 1-24.

[27]	Tognetti Bordogna, M. (2007) Femaleimmigrants and family reunions. Provincia di Reggio Emilia, Giugno, Cicl.

[28]	Tognetti Bordogna, M. (2009) Il lavoro di cura tra produzione e consumo di welfare: Il ruolo del network di cura. In: Badanti & Co. Il Lavoro Domestico Straniero in Italia (a cura di R. Catanzaro e A. Colombo), Il Mulino, Bologna.