To ‘go gender’ – A conceptual framework for analysing migration-related strategic gender practices

ABSTRACT In everyday life individuals tend to read place- and time-specific gender codes and act according to, or in contrast to, what they perceive as the appropriate local gender practice. The aim of the article is to address the questions of what happens when people live translocal lives, in multiple cultures, as in international migration situations, and when people change their place of residence with a corresponding changed gender context. Based on in-depth interviews with immigrants, the authors analyse gender navigation in relation to mobility. They focus on the need to navigate between intentions and requirements of various gendered behaviour. By investigating the gendered practices involved in migration, specifically in international migration, they elucidate this navigation as a ‘going-gender’ process which, in turn, visualises the dilemmas involved in these oscillating rather than unidirectional processes. In conclusion, a ‘going-gender’ analysis can explain the way in which individuals learn to handle the intersection of diverse gender contracts through solving the dilemmas when they move between places. Such an analysis would stress the transformative character of ‘doing gender’ and emphasise the reflexive attitude and strategic approach of studied immigrants.