Migrants, Work and Social Integration ― Women's Labour in the Turkish Ethnic Economy

Exploring recent contemporary debates on gender and migration, this book scrutinizes the relationship between women's work in ethnic economies in Europe and social integration. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in London, it critically engages with the contemporary political discourses of integration and the ways in which the Turkish community constructs their own forms of integration through the expansion of the ethnic economy. The book shows how women are silent contributors to the ethnic economy and how women's work and their role in the maintenance of social ties and networks play an important role in the economic success of the Turkish community. Questioning the role of the ethnic economy in increasing emphasis on women's traditional gender roles as mothers and wives and in representing ethnic/national identity, this book provides evidence that Turkish women in Britain zig-zag their way to social integration and underlines the need for context-specific integration policies in Europe.

Saniye Dedeoglu is an Associated Professor of Social Policy in the Department of Labour Economics at Mugla Univeristy, Turkey, and has been a recent Marie Curie Fellow in the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations (CRER) at Warwick University, UK. She is the author of Women Workers in Turkey and co-editor of Gender and Society in Turkey.