Between Invisibility and Contestation

How do we remember gender roles in migration?

Gender roles in migration processes are both invisibilised – when it comes to the paid and unpaid labour of female migrants – and contested: in images and texts, on the personal and public-political level. Taking the research and artistic work of Margareta Kern and Faime Alpagu on labour migrant women from Turkey and Yugoslavia in Western Europe as a starting point, we explore and discuss:

• How do we create the structures for public knowledge and visibility of female migrants’ stories – and what are our responsibilities as researchers, artists and public historians in these processes?
• In what ways are gender roles negotiated, reinforced or subverted in the images and word that accompany or remember migration processes?
• How are gender roles contested within the personal memories of families and peer groups?
• How do personal archives and official accounts contrast in the representation of female migrants and their work as part of the European history and social fabric – and how can these contrasting representations be captured in visual, narrative and performative forms?

Join us for an evening of critical reflection and dialogue about how we remember and rethink migra-tion, labour and gender.

The online event takes place as part of the transnational project “Female Labour Migration in Euro-pean History” (FeMig.Lab). FeMig.Lab aims to make more visible the often-overlooked intersections of women’s, migration and labour history in Europe. It also examines how these histories continue to influence today’s structures of inclusion, exclusion, and intersectional discrimination.