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Utilizing similarity – Utilizing difference Postcolonial perspectives on labour migration of care workers from post-socialist Europe to Austria Bernhard Weicht Leiden University College, NL b.weicht@.luc.leidenuniv.nl Barbara Samaluk University of Greenwich, UK Discover the world at Leiden University

Care work migration • Domestic workers / carers • ... the vulnerable, exploited, black, working class woman from abroad? • Reduction to summary of social categories • Skilled migration in health care sector • Highly skilled migrant worker within transnational space (Kofman 2000) • Nurses are major part of migrant care workers (Yeates 2009) • Variation according to employment conditions Discover the world at Leiden University

Migrant care workers…...produced by regimes… Low pay and low status; class, gender and ethnic power relations are interlinked and (…) in particular poor women from vulnerable ethnic minorities are employed in the care industries (Fine & Mitchell 2007). ‘it is in the intersection between these three types of regime [care, migration and employment] that practices and actions are shaped and that differences between countries emerge’ (Williams 2012) Discover the world at Leiden University

But... ‘conceptualizing transnational spaces of care requires us to pay attention not only to the different national contexts (...), but also to the different relationships in which these countries stand to each other’ (Erel, 2012:9) • Specifics of Central European area • Historical, economic, cultural particularities • Within historical, (post)colonial and (post)imperial context Discover the world at Leiden University

Migration regimes (Sassen 2007) • Systemic conditions of a country • Interrelations - migration policies, social, economic, historical and cultural circumstances of particular national regimes • Historical specifics (including (neo-)colonial forms of international relations); • Mechanisms binding emigration and immigration countries ‘as today’s labor-importing countries grew richer and more developed, they kept expanding their zones of recruitment or influence, covering a growing number of countries and including a variety of emigration-immigration dynamics, some rooted in past imperial conditions, others in the newer development asymmetries that underlie much migration today’ (149). Discover the world at Leiden University

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East-West logic • Postcolonial theory • Theorising postsocialism (Stenning & Hörschelmann 2008) • Persistence of dichotomy • Construction and imagination of Eastern Europe • Continuities and discontinuities of East-West relations and constructions • Historical and on-going colonial processes • Habsburg empire • Cold War logics • Postsocialist transition • EU accession Discover the world at Leiden University

Methodological and empirical background • Private households (Weicht 2010) • Institutions (Lenhart 2010) • ~15% of all care workers are foreign-born • 25% former Yugoslavia • 33% other, more recent EU accession countries • 20 semi-structured, narrative interviews • Focus on migration narrative & professional narrative • Foreign-born care workers • Formal elderly care sector in Vienna • Different national backgrounds and migration trajectories (CEE) • Different (educational) levels, wards and professional positions Discover the world at Leiden University

Utilizing sameness/difference • Utilization of • Transformation and disintegration • Inequalities • Labour market differences • Post-colonial imaginations Discover the world at Leiden University

Utilization of transformation and disintegration • Due to geographical proximity (also as pass- through) & established links Maja (24, care assistant): I originally come from Bosnia. (...)then there was war and my family fled to Serbia. And as my uncle had lived for 30 years in Austria my father came to him to look for work. Because he didn’t want to be in the war. And we stayed with my aunt in Serbia (...) and only after school - father was here the whole time- we came to Austria. (...) I had finished school for nursing and my father didn’t’ want me to stay there and work for 180 Euros. He said, do you want to come to Austria? In the beginning, as a cleaner you’ll earn 1000 Euros. And that’s how I came to Vienna. Have worked 6 years as a cleaner in a hotel (...). Then got married here, found a husband, got 2 children and now for two years I’m here [in care home], now getting my diploma recognized, and I work here. Discover the world at Leiden University

Utilization of (economic) inequalities • Wage differentials and work opportunities Rada (Slovakia, 50, nurse): It was a coincidence [to come to Austria], because only Austria is so close to Slovakia, because in Hungary or Poland, or Ukraine, or Czech Republic, there the wages are the same as in Slovakia. Discover the world at Leiden University

Strategic economic utilization • Intersecting care- and migration regimes Dario (Bosnia, 40, ward manager): The good thing was that we as [Bosnian] refugees had a special status, so it was easier to find a job. (...) Having the refugee status recognized you automatically got a visa, you automatically got a work permit (…). And then the care workers were also privileged back then. I got citizenship within 4 years. Austrian citizenship, because there weren’t so many care workers and there was this labour market shortage (…), and as the state needed so many care workers there were these privileges then. Discover the world at Leiden University

Utilizing skills Demir (Bosnia, 39, ward manager): Medically oriented - that was what interested me, curatively, that was more interesting and that’s why I then decided to go to medical school. That was generally in Yugoslavia, or in other Eastern European countries (…) that the education was much more medically oriented. And as a nurse we were entitled to do much more, we were allowed to do much more. Discover the world at Leiden University

Utilizing post-colonial imaginations • Negotiating sameness/difference Liliana (Poland, 53, care assistant): Of course I have imagined it to be nicer. Probably because I was still young and I have idealized it...[if I wouldn’t have come then] maybe Austria would also be my idealized image now, the one my grandparents had, that everything is only beautiful, positive, only elegant. (...) That was still from the times of Emperor Franz Joseph (laughs). (…) My grandfather (…) has also participated in the First World War, he was also injured, that sort of stories. Und my grandmother lived longer and always told me these kinds of stories. But they all only [talked about] the nice things. Vienna and culture and that. Of course it wasn’t like that in the end. They hadn’t stayed here, lived here and haven’t had anything to do with these things. Didn’t know everyday life. Discover the world at Leiden University

Conclusions • Building bridges of migration (Sassen, 2007) • Historical bonds and continuities • Ecomomic inequalities • Postcolonial imaginations • Complex mix of materialist, economic, political and cultural relations • Geopolitical changes • Changing migration patterns • Strategic exploitation of differences • Migrant care work reproduces inequalities and (post)colonial relations • Austria benefits from the binary construction of East/West • Employment patterns reproduce the imagination Discover the world at Leiden University

Thank you! Bernhard Weicht Leiden University College b.weicht@luc.leidenuniv.nl Barbara Samaluk University of Greenwich Discover the world at Leiden University

Discover the world at Leiden University