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Foreign Nannies and Maids: A Historical Perspective on Female Immigration and Domestic Work in Italy (1960–1970)

In: Gender and Migration in Historical Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandra Gissi

    (University of Naples “L‘Orientale”)

Abstract

Women have been one of the vanguards of immigration movements in Italy. The first flow of migration was the result of the post-colonial situation in the former Italian colonies of Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia. Female migrants coming from Spain, Cape Verde, Portugal, El Salvador, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ceylon, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan followed. Charting the history of female immigration is fundamental for reconsidering the consolidated idea that the arrival, analysis and narration of the flows towards Italy only began in the 1980s. This essay, which presents the first result of ongoing research, aims to investigate some features of female immigration, the related policies and its reception in public discourse in Italy between the 1960s and 1970s. This analysis has been conducted by considering different sources and through a survey of the daily and periodical press, including the feminist one. Data and narratives contribute to the analysis of paradigm construction—visibility, invisibility, subalternity, rights and racialization—linked to female immigration and a specific sector of employment such as domestic work. The thematic knots linking domestic work and female migration underscore crucial issues such as immigration policies, the welfare model, the redefinition of the concepts of ‘natural’ and ‘traditional’, the relations between class and gender, the dynamics which define ‘otherness’, the continuous process of negotiation between the private and public sphere.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandra Gissi, 2022. "Foreign Nannies and Maids: A Historical Perspective on Female Immigration and Domestic Work in Italy (1960–1970)," Palgrave Studies in Economic History, in: Beatrice Zucca Micheletto (ed.), Gender and Migration in Historical Perspective, chapter 0, pages 123-146, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palscp:978-3-030-99554-6_4
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-99554-6_4
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