Imaginaries of Europe Technologies of Gender, Economies of

ABSTRACT This article explores some of the ways in which ideas about and attempts to construct a European identity and sense of belonging inscribe an imaginary of Europe that is exclusionary and elitist. It suggests that the symbolic figure of ‘the immigrant woman ’ is a container category that simultaneously signi-fies the non-European and tests and destabilizes claims to Europe’s essential characteristics. It also argues that traces of this imaginary of Europe can be found in feminist scholarship on global care chains and that the spatial category of ‘the domestic ’ is the invisible seam that ties this scholarship to the hegemonic imagi-nary of Europe. KEY WORDS ‘the domestic ’ ◆ Europe ◆ global care chains ◆ humanity ◆ imaginary ◆ ‘the immigrant woman ’ ◆ universality Conscious that Europe is a continent that has brought forth civilisation; that its inhabitants, arriving in successive waves since the first ages of mankind, have gradually developed the values underlying humanism: equality of persons, freedom, respect for reason, Drawing inspiration from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, the values of which, still present in its heritage, have embedded within the life of society its percep-tion of the central role of the human person and his or her inviolable and inalienable rights, and respect for law, Believing that reunited Europe intends to continue along this path of civil-isation... for the good of all its inhabitants,... that it wishes to remain a continent open to culture, learning and social progress. (Preamble to th