Gender Innovation and Migration in Switzerland

ISBN-13: 9783030016258 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 96 str.

Francesca Falk

Recenzje

"Francesca Falk published her book ... on the historical effects of migration in gendered innovation discourses. Her work is particularly valuable for expanding the social imaginaries of countries and citizens in need of adopting more inclusive and gender-fair concepts of national identity. ... The references to feminist scholarship throughout the book give further resources for the reader to reach out in a quest for a more encompassing understanding of historical facts." (Carolina Hutmacher, Gender Campus, gendercampus.ch, March 04, 2019)

Spis treści

Chapter 1 Introduction

Switzerland as a straggler in relation to gender equality

An exploratory interview

“As if I had made a journey back in time”

Cooking and sewing courses for girls, geometry for boys

Unequal opportunities at school

Bring to the fore not only personal, but also structural conditions

Chapter 2 Conceptual clarifications

Gender innovation

The intersection of discrimination and privileges and new reconfigurations

A ‘migrantisation’ of the past

The relationship between spatial and social change

Migration and mobility

A unified analysis of migration

Chapter 3 Changing gendered divisions of work

Nurses from Kerala

A sedentary bias in the history of emigration

Colonial constellations

Chapter 4 Nurseries

The first nurseries

The so-called boom years

There is never a single story

Migration and the development of nurseries

The normalising effect of an infrastructure

The current situation

Male staff members with a so-called ‘migrant background’

Chapter 5 Higher education

Switzerland as a pioneer − and what lies behind it

The oft-omitted impact of these ‘foreign’ students

Feminist forerunners are not unequivocal heroines of history

The first female full professor in Switzerland – born in the Russian empire

The first extraordinara in Romandie – born in the Russian empire

The first extraordinara in German-speaking Switzerland – again born in...

Chapter 6 Female suffrage

Female suffrage in Switzerland and its relation to migration

The first formal association promoting political and legal equality for women

Migrating political strategies

The last stragglers

An indirect experience of migration

Not downplaying the effects of racism

Women's right to vote in cultural memory

Unseen democratic deficits in the supposed heartland of democracy

“A new Swiss export article: instruction in democracy”

1929: Fighting women in Nigeria and Switzerland

Chapter 7 Conclusion: An awareness of alternatives

Equal rights presented as being endangered by migration

Migration and the creation of new ideas and practices

Changing the perspective under which our past is told and our future imagined

O autorze

Francesca Falk is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.

Blurb

“This highly informative book provides precisely analysed situations highlighting migration’s crucial role for emancipatory change and hence socio-political innovation. A so far hidden perspective is being made visible and contributes a highly compelling piece for rewriting Switzerland’s history.”

—Julia Nentwich, Research Institute for Organisational Psychology, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

“Francesca Falk proposes a migrantisation of the history of gender equality in Switzerland. It was women with experience of migration who were engaged on behalf of women's suffrage with special verve. It was working Italian women in particular who created the conditions for the expansion of childcare infrastructure.”

—Elisabeth Joris, Historian, Zurich, Switzerland

“Instead of sidelining issues of migration and gender, as is done so often, this important book teaches us that these perspectives must be central to any substantial narration of Swiss history.”

—Patricia Purtschert, Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies, University of Bern, Switzerland

This open access book analyses migration and its relation to socio-political transformation in Switzerland. It addresses how migration has made new forms of life possible and shows how this process generated gender innovation in different fields: the changing division of work, the establishment of a nursery infrastructure, access to higher education for women, and the struggle for female suffrage. Seeing society through the lens of migration alters the perspective from which our past and thus our present is told—and our future imagined.

Francesca Falk is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.