Negotiating Spaces
Kalpana Vishwanath
TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY by Meenakshi Thapan Sage Publications, 2007, 319 pp., 385
March 2007, volume 31, No 3

According to The World Migration Report almost 50% of all migrants are women. This process termed as ‘the feminisation of migration’ has been rightly become the focus of many researches. Women migrants were traditionally seen as associational migrants, or migrating with men or their families. The increasing number and visibility of women in different occupations and countries has led to a spate of research into the understanding the phenomenon both from a macro level of movement in a globalizing world and individual women’s experiences at the micro level to understand notions of identity. This volume under review is the first of a series of four volumes on women and migration in Asia, all based upon an international conference on women and migration that was held in New Delhi in December 2003. This volume focuses on the experience of migration at the transnational level with a special focus on women’s own experience of the process and life in their new home.

The other volumes in the series examine how economic and social structure shape women’s possibilities and experiences of migration. They also explore the conditions of migration which lead to forced migration and violations of rights. The volumes all focus specifically on the experience of Asian women who constitute a large number of the women who are transnational migrants.

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