Remapping Gender Place And Mobility

Enhancing our understanding of how people and places are affected by globalization at the level of everyday interactions within ’Nordic Peripheries’, this book sheds light on local particularities as well as global confluences, by illuminating how gender, mobility and belonging contribute to ruptures and/or stability in the lives of men and women living in and/or moving within these northern localities. Crossing disciplinary and geographical boundaries the focus of the book is specifically on how global processes shape and influence the Nordic countries at the social level: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, as well as the Faroe Islands. The book starts from the premise that the Nordic peripheries offer an especially powerful lens on ’peripherality’ in a globalized and globalizing world, because the region as a whole is traditionally perceived as relatively affluent, stable and with high levels of social equality. Yet, as the different chapters in the book demonstrate - with case studies that illuminate diverse gendered processes - globalization produces ruptures and new social constellations also at the rims of Nordic societies, well beyond the cushioning of comprehensive social welfare regimes. By elevating the empirical findings to more general debates about the gendered effects of globalization the book invites the reader to reflect upon not only Nordic particularities but also how insights from this part of the world can be instructive for understanding the nuances and complexities of global confluences at large.

This book analyses changes in gender relations, as a result of globalization, in countries on the semi-periphery of power. Semi-periphery refers to those nations which are not drivers of change globally, but have enough economic and political security to have some power in determining their own responses to global forces. Individual countries obviously face challenges that are to some extent unique, although the prescriptions for economic and social restructuring are based on a common competitive logic. Remapping Gender in the New Global Order draws on examples from four countries on the semi-periphery of power but still located in the top category of the UNDP’s Human Development Index. At one end is Norway, one of the world’s richest and most developed welfare-states, and, at the other, is Mexico, a country that is considerably poorer and more susceptible to the power of the United States and international agencies. Australia and Canada, the other two semi-peripheral countries examined, are in the middle. Also included are comparisons with the epicentre of the ‘core’ base of power – the United States. The individual chapters focus on the effect on specific groups of people, including males and indigenous groups, the mechanisms people use to both cope with dramatic social changes, and the strategies and alliances that are used to affect the course of changes. It covers topics that range from implications of labour migration on care regimes to globalism’s effect on masculinity and the ‘male breadwinner’ model.

This mapping presents a selected overview of existing research on gender, education and population flows in the Nordic peripheral areas. These areas are faced with a series of challenges that cannot be analyzed nor solved without taking a gender perspective into account. The challenges relate to, for instance, altered living conditions caused by global changes, stagnated or negative economic development, decrease in the amount of workplaces (particularly in the traditionally male-dominated professions) as well as, not least, migration and depopulation which is partly due to the fact that the young people of the area (especially the women) move to bigger cities to educate themselves. The challenges in question are not only significant in relation to the viability and cohesion of the areas, but also for the men and women who live there and their mutual social relations.

This book takes an explicitly feminist approach to studying gender and social inequalities in island settings while deliberating on ‘islandness’ as part of the intersectional analysis. Though there is a wealth of recent literature on islands and island studies, most of this literature focuses on islands as objects of study rather than as contexts for exploring gender relations and local gendered developments. Taking Karides’ ‘Island feminism’ as a starting point and drawing from the wider literature on island studies as well as gender and place, this book bridges this gap by exploring gender, gender relations, affect and politics in various island settings spanning a great variety of global locations, from the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the north to Tasmania in south. Insights on recent developments and gendered contestations in these locations provide rich food for thought on the intricate links between gender and place in a local/global world. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of gender and feminist studies, cultural studies, Island studies, anthropology, and more broadly to sociology, geography, diversity and social justice studies, global democracy, and international relations.

Available online: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:norden:org:diva-6012 This report details the findings of the EQUIL project: Equality in Isolated Areas. The project focuses on people living and working in geographically relatively isolated areas of the Nordic region, and asks how they are able to make a living and maintain ties to locality, and how questions of gender equality impact on work and family life decisions. The places in focus are Narsaq in Greenland, Suðuroy in the Faroe Islands and Læsø in Denmark. While different in several important respects, these places face a common challenge in maintaining demographic sustainability, as they are characterised by declining population figures, and especially young women have tended to leave. The report points to six lessons learned from its analyses, including how perceptions about ‘the good life’ often take presidency over perceived career possibilities when people choose where to settle.

During the Danish Presidency for the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2015, attention was drawn towards challenges and best practice examples in relation to gender, education and population flows in peripheral areas throughout the Nordic countries - Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and the autonomous countries, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland. The present report summarises the findings and conclusions which are covered in the existing Nordic research and literature within the field, as well as the experience and professional responses, which were presented during the course of the common dialogue and exchange of experience.

This volume examines gender and mobility in Africa though the central themes of borders, bodies and identity. It explores perceptions and engagements around ‘borders’; the ways in which ‘bodies’ and women’s bodies in particular, shape and are affected by mobility, and the making and reproduction of actual and perceived ‘boundaries’; in relation to gender norms and gendered identify. Over fourteen original chapters it makes revealing contributions to the field of migration and gender studies. Combining historical and contemporary perspectives on mobility in Africa, this project contextualises migration within a broad historical framework, creating a conceptual and narrative framework that resists post-colonial boundaries of thought on the subject matter. This multidisciplinary work uses divergent methodologies including ethnography, archival data collection, life histories and narratives and multi-country survey level data and engages with a range of conceptual frameworks to examine the complex forms and outcomes of mobility on the continent today. Contributions include a range of case studies from across the continent, which relate either conceptually or methodologically to the central question of gender identity and relations within migratory frameworks in Africa. This book will appeal to researchers and scholars of politics, history, anthropology, sociology and international relations.