Throughout the last century, intense political and economic change, as well as shifting gender roles shaped women’s emigration and immigration in Croatia and especially Istria across three different state formations: rural-to-urban circular migration, intensified internal mobility for industrial and service sector jobs in the Socialist period, expanding tourism and industrial development have shaped women’s internal migration and immigration until the end of the socialist period. The postsocialist transition and the armed conflicts of the 1990s further intensified women’s informal emigration, especially into care and service sectors in Italy, Austria, Germany, and Ireland. Following Croatia’s accession to the European Union and its subsequent entry into the Schengen Area, Istria acquired a new status as a destination for growing numbers of migrant women.
During the workshop, we examine continuities and changes in women’s migrations during both the socialist and post‑socialist period. We analyse how women’s migration has been framed by different disciplines and by the politics of representation, and critically assess current research as well as the persistent lack of visibility in public space. Drawing on several methodological frameworks, the workshop aims to foster dialogue across disciplines—history, art, journalism, activism, sociology, and others. In doing so, we seek to encourage the negotiation of representations and visibilities in both public remembrance and the present day, opening a space for strengthening the agency and visibility of migrant women’s and their stories.
The workshop is part of the European project „Female Labour Migration in European History“ (FeMig.Lab). FeMig.Lab aims to make more visible the often overseen herstories of Female Labour Migration in Europe as well as their consequences for today’s mechanisms of migrant inclusion and exclusion and for intersectional structures of discrimination.
