Migrant Women Transforming Citizenship

Umut Erel is Research Fellow in the Faculty of Social Sciences at The Open University, UK

• Chapter 1 Constructing Meaningful Lives; Chapter 2 Citizenship, Identity and Culture: The Contexts of Britain and Germany; Chapter 3 Developing Agency: Schooling and Family; Chapter 4 Women at Work; Chapter 5 Challenging Family Boundaries; Chapter 6 Longing and Belonging; Chapter 7 Conclusion: Transforming Citizenship;

'This is an insightful study of citizenship as a practice. The use of life-stories provides an effective tool for exploring lived citizenship; in particular, the life-stories throw light on how Turkish migrant women exercise agency in often difficult circumstances and, in doing so, forge new citizenship practices. It represents a valuable contribution to the gendered citizenship literature.' Ruth Lister, Loughborough University, UK 'Umut Erel significantly contributes to our understanding of issues relating to citizenship, racism, nationalism and their intersecting gender and class dimensions. Her analysis decentres hegemonic Western norms in understanding the agency and citizenship of migrant women. Erel develops a normative perspective in which migrant women are not constructed as potential danger to 'social cohesion' of the citizen body but rather as helping to transform citizenship to become more inclusive as well as more vital.' Nira Yuval-Davis, University of East London, UK '...a thought-provoking book that urges the reader to reflect on national, ethnic and gender-based boundaries of hegemonic discourses.' Immigration, Asylum and National Law 'On the whole this is a very interesting, clearly structured and well-written book. ... Migrant Women Transforming Citizenship is a timely and very important contribution to debates on citizenship, multiculturalism and diversity. The book's strength lies in the consequential entanglement of individual insights with her analysis of the politics of multiculturalism. Erel manages carefully to balance her empirical data and extrapolations by giving the women's voices an appropriate space and avoiding overgeneralizations...' European Journal of Women's Studies 'Umut Erel's Migrant Women Transforming Citizenship offers important correctives to mainstream popular and social science thinking on gender, migration, and citizenship. ... Erel presents a thorough and thought-provoking discussion of the utility of life histor