Introduction

Gendering Migration demonstrates the significance of studying migration through the lens of gender and ethnicity and the contribution this perspective makes to migration histories. As an interdisciplinary work, it draws on a range of methodological approaches and brings together social science theories and approaches with historical perspectives that emphasise continuities and changes over time. As recently argued (Donato et al. 2006), migration studies need an interdisciplinary dialogue between history and social science which, on questions of gender and migration, helps to articulate the fluidity of gender, drawing attention not only to movement across space but also through time. However, there appears to be an historical myopia, even within gender-sensitive approaches to the study of migration (Kofman 2004). By focusing mainly on the post-1945 period, this volume provides an essential historical dimension to the study of gender and migration. Through its consideration of the impact of migration on men and masculine identities as well as women and feminine identities, it opens up a new area of research. The volume brings together a range of disciplines and research methods that draw on oral narratives, documentary and archival sources. It incorporates a wide range of migrant groups including European migrants (German, Greek, Irish, Polish and Spanish) as well as East African-Asian, Caribbean, Pakistani and Kurdish. The diversity as well as some of the commonalities of their experiences allows for an exploration of the ways in which gender and ethnicity have been negotiated over time by different migrants in Britain.