The narratives about home and family among Georgian labour migrant women in Italy

Apstrakt

The paper investigates the narratives about family and home among the first generation Georgian labour migrant women in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna province. It examines the narratives by low-skilled Georgian migrant women that work as domestic workers. The fieldwork, carried out in November 2018 and May 2019 in the city of Reggio-Emilia shows that Georgian migrants do often feel alienated from their families that they leave back in Georgia. They feel largely alienated from their Georgian neighbours, relatives, society and nation as well. Georgian migrant women’s narratives show contradictory emotional discourses of attachment and alienation to their families. Based on in-depth interviews with 12 women between 43 to 69 and participant observation, the paper highlights importance of the families. Despite experiencing “lost place” in Georgia, migrant women still aim at returning to their families and “homes” there. They feel to “return” and to perform their roles as wives, daughters, mothers, grandmas, aunts, etc. in Georgia. Considering economic hardships of their families in Georgia, however, they prolong staying in Italy for indefinite amount of time.