Table Of ContentDeconstructing
Essentialism
Migrant Women in
Stratified Labour Markets
Anne-Iris Romens
Deconstructing Essentialism
Anne-Iris Romens
Deconstructing
Essentialism
Migrant Women in Stratified
Labour Markets
Anne-Iris Romens
University of Milan - Bicocca
Milan, Italy
ISBN 978-3-031-14398-4 ISBN 978-3-031-14399-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14399-1
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Acknowledgments
My first thanks go to the 51 participants who accepted to contribute to
my research. Thank you for sharing your experience, feelings, and
thoughts.
I am specially grateful to Devi Sacchetto, from the University of Padua,
for his support all along the process of conducting research and drafting
a book. Special thanks also go to Valeria Piro, Thomas Romens, Angela
Maria Toffanin, and Francesca Alice Vianello, for their support and the
time they have dedicated to my work, proofreading the book, and pro-
viding valuable comments. I also thank Valentina Pacetti and Paolo Rossi
from the University of Milan Bicocca for their trust and support in con-
ducting research.
I would also like to express my gratitude to all the scholars and friends
who have contributed to this work with proofreading, discussions, and
facilitating access to participants. More specifically, I thank Eleonore
Kofman and Kyoko Shinozaki, as well as Fabienne Bretin, Ligia Camargo,
Aby Faye, Ru Gao, Paolo Gusmeroli, Tsara Hilbold, Sandra Agyei
Kyeremeh, Abdoulaye Ngom, David Primo, Alessandra Siino, Stéphanie
Specht, Isabelle Wilhelm, and the members of Arising Africans, associazi-
one Ebene, association Plurielles and association Rhin-Volga.
I am also grateful to Palgrave’s editors and staff, in particular to Alec
Selwyn and Liam Inscoe - Jones, for making the project of publishing my
v
vi Acknowledgments
research possible and to the anonymous reviewers for their useful
comments.
This work would not have been possible without the financial support
of the University of Padua and the University of Milan Bicocca.
Finally, I would like to especially thank my family and Alvise, for his
patience and support, and a loving thanks to Leo, who often complained
about mommy “working too much”.
May 2022, Anne-Iris Romens.
Mommy writing in English, Leo.
Contents
1 Studying Stratifications and Essentialism in the Labour
Market 1
2 “I Became a Migrant from Eastern Europe”. Essentialism
and Migrant Women with Tertiary Education 23
3 “First the Europeans, Then Maybe the Filipinas, Then
you”. Perceiving Stratifications and Essentialism 43
4 “She Wanted me to Take a Dictation Exercise”.
Essentialism and the Embodiment of Skills 79
5 “I can’t Limit my Life to your Prejudices”. Coping and
Resistance Strategies 107
6 “Maybe This Will Be Useful for the Future”. Expanding
Research on Essentialism 139
I ndex 147
vii
List of Tables
Table 1.1 List of participants 10
Table 3.1 Views of women born in Sub-Saharan African countries
on the impact of essentialism in accessing employment,
according to the research context 49
Table 3.2 Views of women born in European non-EU countries
on the impact of essentialism in accessing employment,
according to the research context 53
ix
List of Schemes
Scheme 3.1 Views of labour market gatekeepers on the impact of
essentialism in accessing employment in Alsace (France) 55
Scheme 3.2 Views of labour market gatekeepers on the impact of
essentialism in accessing employment in Veneto (Italy) 58
Scheme 3.3 Recruiters’ perception of their agency in the recruitment
and selection process 71
xi
1
Studying Stratifications
and Essentialism in the Labour Market
I repeated exactly, enunciating the syllables, what I had said: I wanted to prac-
tice my social work profession, and I did not want anything else.
This time, the counsellor, who, I knew later, was a social worker herself,
could not repress her irritation at what she perceived as naivety or, even worse,
stubbornness:
“But do you know at least what a social worker is? And what path must be
followed? You might consider something more accessible to you. Look, since it
seems you want to work in this area, you could become a domestic assistant,
that’s suitable”.
Scholastique Mukasonga (2018: 133)1
The experience of Mukasonga’s heroine could be that of one of my
interviewees. After struggling to obtain her diploma in Burundi, the
woman is faced with French social workers and recruiters that give no
value to her “so beautiful diploma”. Moreover, the employment counsel-
lor advises her to look for a job with low social recognition in the care
sector, where the woman will make little use of her educational back-
ground and her prior professional experience. Scholastique Mukasonga
1 My translation.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 1
A.-I. Romens, Deconstructing Essentialism,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14399-1_1
