Feminized Transnational Spaces – Or the Interplay of Gender and Nation
Feminized Transnational Spaces – Or the Interplay of Gender and Nation

Summary/Abstract: Drawing on her multi-sited research on migration strategies of Eastern Euro-pean women to Germany, Sabine Hess shows that highly mobile, transnational fields have emerged in Europe since the end of the Cold War. But are these transmigrants new nomadic subjects freed from the constraints of the nation state, or even its silent rebels, as cultural anthropological narratives suggest? In following the routes of these migrant women, Hess argues that national gender and migration regimes are not losing their grip. Nor have they remained unchanged, as can be seen in the emergence of transnationalized, flexible gen-der arrangements. By contrasting the migration strategies of Eastern European women with the middle-class woman’s practice of employing domestic work-ers and her self-positioning, the article addresses more than the simple transna-tionalization of private spheres. It also describes a process of hierarchical flexibilization of femininity along the axes of class and nationality.

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