Women, migration and care: Explorations of diversity and dynamism in the South

Abstract

The conceptualization and models of migration, gendered labor, and care have been developed with the primacy of South to North migrations in mind and have only incorporated Southern countries’ experiences selectively. Using the examples of selected countries in the South, especially middle-income countries, this article aims to unsettle some of the assumptions that underlie this analysis and to lay out some questions that might need to be addressed to make questions of care reflect the diversity and dynamic of migratory systems, gender regimes, and welfare arrangements in the South. In particular, the middle-income countries, such as Argentina and South Africa, pose interesting questions as they are tied into global circuits of care in distinctive ways and have different kinds of care provisioning and histories of gendered migrations.