The paper focuses on the social situation and social practices of female care migrants (at the age of 50 and above) from the South Moravia (the region of Mikulov, Břeclav) who migrate for work to Austria as domestic workers-caregivers for seniors at regular intervals (circular migration). The main aim of the text is to argue that translocal female migrants paradoxically perceive their labour migration as a specific form of emancipation, despite the fact that they work in the so-called live-in-service jobs (where they live and work in private households) and often experience indignity. While in Austria they work in gendered and very demanding jobs with low wages, circular care migration provides them with the possibility to extend their gender power in the transforming Czech society. There is thus a paradox in that while they are marginalized in Austria, they are empowered on the Czech side of the border. This is achieved through paid reproductive work and better access to income, which leads to personal consumption based on their own interests and overall personal benefit. Special attention is paid to new forms of translocal care chains and new forms of these women’s partner cohabitation (living apart together).
The Czech Republic is chosen by Ukrainian transnational mothers as a destination for their economic migration, mainly because it is possible, due to the geographical distance, to conduct a circulation migration between the two countries. The life “here” and “there” and the mobility of female labor migration gives, on the one hand, Ukrainian mothers the possibility of coordinating productive and reproductive work but, on the other hand, they are “trapped” in the net of unskilled work, and it is hard for them to get a stable job position. I analyze how gender operates in transnational spaces, and what impacts it has on the experience of motherhood. I describe how transnational Ukrainian mothers narratively construct and emphasize their experiences with transnational motherhood., Petra Ezzeddine., and Obsahuje bibliografii