Dr Francesca Scrinzi
- Senior Lecturer (Sociological & Cultural Studies)
telephone:
0141 330 4090
email:
Francesca.Scrinzi@glasgow.ac.uk
College of Social Sciences, School of Social & Political Sciences, R1007 Level 10, Adam Smith Building, Glasgow, G12 8RT
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2736-0562Biography
- Personal website: www.mwpweb.eu/FrancescaScrinzi
Since 2000, I have researched the issues of gender, racism and migrant labour, more specifically the intersections between the social divisions of care work, the restructuring of welfare state systems and international migration in comparative perspective in European societies. Care as a resource is unequally distributed in the world: on the one hand, middle-class women in affluent countries increasingly rely on migrant and racialised women to 'buy out' domestic and care work, in societies characterised by durable inequalities in the sexual division of labour and the restructuring of public care provision.
My ethnographic comparative study of migrant women's and men's employment in care jobs in France and Italy 13 (Genre, migrations et emplois domestiques en France et en Italie. Construction de la non qualification et de l’altérité ethnique (Gender, Migration and Domestic Labour in France and Italy. The Social Construction of Skill and Otherness), Éditions Pétra, Paris, 2013) addressed the international division of care work, by bringing together the restructuring of Welfare states and of the labour market, international migration and immigration policies, the changing patterns of the sexual division of work and those of women's employment in contemporary European societies. One original contribution of the book is to compare different forms of organisation of work relations, by examining the traditional household-based domestic service relationship between a private employer and an employee (in Italy) and care-givers working in non-profit associations providing home-based services (in France). Indeed, in recent years scholars have pointed to the necessity of incorporating into the analysis of the 'international care chains' other agents of social reproduction besides the households, such as the market, the non-profit sector, the Welfare State and immigration policies. More specifically, the book explores the interplay of social relations of gender, class and racism in training and recruitment practices, where ideas of 'cultural difference' and 'femininity' are embedded and negotiated. The cross-national comparative perspective sheds light on the different ways in which Otherness and 'skill' are socially constructed in two very different national context, characterised by specific care and gender regimes, migratory patterns, public policies, models of integration and forms of organisation of care work.
My research on migrant domestic labour and the international division of care work has responded to recent scholarly debates: researchers have expressed reservations about the narrow focus of existing studies. Most of these concerned only female labour and female employers within domestic service, and examined the traditional household-based domestic service while neglecting actors, institutions and settings of care work within the public sphere. My work successfully broke with these restrictions so as to broaden our definitions of the international division of care by including the issues of men’s work and masculinities (the monographic book Migrant Men, Masculinities and Domestic Labour. Men of the Home, co-authored with Ester Gallo, forthcoming in 2016 at Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), and, further, by addressing migrants working as cleaners and care-givers within institutional and bureaucratised settings.
More recently, but building on this earlier research, I have started to investigate migrant women's collective mobilisations and how feminist politics deals with the challenge of migration, with particular regard to the issue of domestic labour. Very few studies examine the impact of migration on feminist practices and the role of migrant activists in Italy. These studies tend to downplay the organisation of domestic work and its impact on migrant women's political participation. Yet my research findings suggest that the organisation of domestic work heavily affects the political relationship between native and migrant women in Italy (see Grants).
Since 2010 I have worked on women’s activism and gender relations in the Italian anti-immigration party the Northern league. My current research focuses on the Northern League party (NL) in Italy and the National Front party (NF) in France (ERC – European Research Council, Starting Grant, 'Gendering Activism in Populist Radical Right Parties. A comparative study of women’s and men’s participation in the Northern League (Italy) and the National Front (France)’ 2012-2014).
As a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the European University Institute of Florence (Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Global Governance Programme), I am currently researching Evangelical migrants in Southern Europe, within the project funded by the European Commission titled MIGRANTCHRISTIANITY. Migration, Religion and Work in Comparative Perspective: Evangelical ‘ethnic churches’ in Southern Europe (2015-2017).
I will be British Academy Mid-Career fellow for the period September 2018-August 2019 (project title: Gender and the populist radical right in Europe). Through this project I will further develop my research on gender and anti-immigration activism in Europe, and organise a series of knowledge transfer activities involving antiracist and feminist NGOs.
Research interests
- Gendered migration, migrant women
- Racism, ethnicity and gender
- Migration and racism in contemporary France and Italy
- Women and work; the sexual division of labour
- Migrant domestic workers and the international division of care work
- Gender relations and anti-immigration activism in contemporary Europe
- Migrant and native women’s activism in contemporary Italy
- Migration and religion, migrant Christianity
- Evangelical migrants in Southern Europe
Current research project
British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship 'Gender and the populist radical right in Europe'
In Europe, gender equality issues are a battlefield for anti-immigration actors. Populist radical right political parties champion traditional models of the family while, at the same time, they paradoxically frame their anti-immigration agenda as a struggle for gender equality, depicting Islam as incompatible with women’s rights. At a time of highly polarised public debate on immigration, those supporting gender equality are under pressure and torn between cultural relativism and cultural fundamentalism.
This fellowship will produce a monograph and organise numerous events to engage different British and international publics on this topical issue. The fellowship will expose the paradoxical and under-studied gendered strategies of these parties and to promote scholarly and public debates on the challenges which their mobilisation of gender equality issues raises for feminists.
Research groups
- Sociology
Grants
British Academy Mid-Career Fellow 'Gender and the populist radical right in Europe' (2018-2019, £132,072)
Migration and religion in Southern Europe. Evangelical Christianity, migration and work
“MIGRANTCHRISTIANITY. Migration, Religion and Work in Comparative Perspective: Evangelical ‘ethnic churches’ in Southern Europe”, Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowship of the European Commission, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies/Global Governance Programme, European University Institute (2015-2017).
Gender Relations in Anti-Immigration Social Movements in Europe
"Gendering Activism in Populist Radical Right Parties: A Comparative Study of Women’s and Men’s Participation in The Northern League (Italy) and The National Front (France)", European Research Council, Starting grant, euros 228,674 (2012-2014)
2010, British Academy small grant, ‘Gendering the study of anti-immigration movements in Europe: women and men activists in the Northern League party in Italy’ (£1,756).
2010, Adam Smith Research Foundation Seedcorn grant, ‘Women’s associations and representations of gender in the Northern League party: a study of documentary sources’ (£1,200).
Migrant and Native Women's Activism in Contemporary Italy
An ethnographic study of migrant and native women's associations in Italy, British Academy small grant (£976, award n. SG110856), June-July 2012
‘Italian feminism and the challenge of international migration’, 10th June-10th July 2011, ethnographic study funded through Sociology Seedcorn funding, University of Glasgow.
Supervision
- Habersky, Elena
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Additional information
Qualifications
- Laurea (BA) in Contemporary history, Genoa, Italy (1999)
- DEA (Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies = MSc / MA) in Sociologie des Migrations et relations interethniques (Migrations and Ethnic Relations), Nice, France (2001)
- PhD in Sociology, Nice, France (2005)
Positions held
- 2013, Visiting fellow, CEE - Centre d’études éuropéennes, Sciences Po, IEP - Institute for Political Studies, Paris, France
- 2013, Visiting professor, Department of Sociology, University of Milan Bicocca, Italy
- Postdoctoral fellow (CNRS, French National Centre for Scientific Research, 2006-2007)
- Consultant for UNESCO, Sector for Social and Human Sciences, International Migration and Multicultural Policies Section, Paris (2006)
- Assistant lecturer (allocataire monitrice), Department of Sociology, University of Nice, France (2001-2004)
Membership of Research Centres and Networks and Professional associations
- Associate member of PRESAGE - Programme de Recherche et d’Enseignement des SAvoirs sur le GEnre, Sciences Po, Paris
- Member of CRESPPA/GTM Genre Travail Mobilités (research centre on Gender Work Mobilities), National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris
- Member of Centre for Research on Racism, Ethnicity and Nationalism (CRREN), University of Glasgow
- Member of interdisciplinary Glasgow Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNet), University of Glasgow
- Member of the International Centre for Gender and Women's Studies (ICGWS), University of Glasgow
- Member of the network Genre, Classe, Race. Rapports sociaux et construction de l'altérité (Gender, “Race” and Class. Social relations and the Production of Otherness) of the AFS Association Française de Sociologie (French Association of Sociology)
