This thesis investigates the ways in which women’s international migration from Armenia to Turkey is governed by the production and re-production of appropriate feminities and masculinities by macro-level state policies, legal texts and by everyday cultural discourses. Through an analysis of policy documents, legal texts and data collected through interviews with policy makers both in Armenia and Turkey, this thesis shows that gendered norms and rituals are implicated in how states regulate, intervene or simply ignore who are allowed or denied entry. Border regulations are affected and in return discipline the ideas and norms revolving around how the deserving feminine subjects of society should act and think.This thesis demonstrates that in focusing on a South-South migration from the perspective of gender challenges the dominant analysis of International Relations (IR) on migration, which has framed international migration mostly as a question of international security. In contrast, this thesis brings the rich political histories, social contexts and economic concerns – framed by gender, class and racial hierarchies – to bear on the flows of migrant women from Armenia to Turkey. This framework developed here has two important implications for how migration is studied in IR: one, it paints a much more complex picture of state-migrant interactions that goes beyond simplistic security/exclusion claims; and secondly, it allows for a multi-faceted conception of women’s agency.
This thesis argues that migrant women develop several methods of managing their identities in order receive acceptance and legitimacy in the context of the gendered regulation of migration by Armenia and Turkey. They actively participate sometimes to challenge their characterization as “illegals”, as immoral mothers and women, and as useless workers. Their relationships with their families, employers, police officers and compatriots are carefully described and analyzed. The findings suggest that migrant women’s experiences are multifaceted and cannot be subsumed under a category of “irregular” migrant. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/18789 |
| Date | 02 February 2016 |
| Creators | Teke Lloyd, Fatma Armagan |
| Contributors | O'Brien, Robert, Political Science |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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