‘Finally, We Are Well, Stable’: Perception of Agency in the Biographies of Precarious Migrant Workers

0564139 - SOÚ 2024 RIV GB eng J - Journal Article
Trlifajová, Lucie - Formánková, Lenka
‘Finally, We Are Well, Stable’: Perception of Agency in the Biographies of Precarious Migrant Workers.
Work Employment and Society. Roč. 37, č. 6 (2023), s. 1583-1604. ISSN 0950-0170. E-ISSN 1469-8722
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA17-21259S
Institutional support: RVO:68378025
Keywords : agency * biographic-narrative method * gender * Central and Eastern Europe * migration * precarity * temporality
OECD category: Sociology
Impact factor: 3.7, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170221092351

This article examines how experience with precarious work influences the notions of control and empowerment among female migrant workers. Instead of focusing on migrant workers as victims of a continuous chain of precarious employment, the article aims to enrich the current knowledge by focusing on the complexity of elements involved in subjective assessments of agency. Based on research of Ukrainian female migrants, we show how precarious jobs can be perceived as enabling, allowing women more control over their lives. To understand these perceptions of agency, we show how important it is to focus on the embeddedness of migrants’ reflective choices in their life trajectories. In the context of migration, this implies a shift in understanding from one in which migrants compare their experience (of labour or gender structures) between country of origin and country of destination towards a more nuanced approach.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0335828