Crossing Borders and Shifting Boundaries of Belonging in Post-Wall Europe. A gender Lens

in Migration online.cz. Mis en ligne : http://www.migrationonline.cz/e-library/?x=2067079The way people practice border-crossing depends on their social and political context and their positioning in it. Migrant women and men do not have the same opportunities. Mobility has a specific significance for women: historically they have been associated with immobility and passivity. The focus of this text is on people in Eastern Europe who can build on their social capital and successfully use opportunity structures that tend to favour them as candidates to migration and mobility over other migrants (from Southern Europe in particular). The author shows that crossing borders can be empowering, and established gender norms may be challenged. But it can also lead to new dependencies and reinforce existing gender boundaries and hierarchies