De-bordering and re-bordering practices at the intersection of gender and migration. A multi-site exploration of specialized services for migrant women experiencing violence in Italy and Sweden

Abstract

This study builds on analyses of everyday professional practices to explore de-bordering and re-bordering processes in the field of gender-based violence (GBV). The concepts of de-bordering and re-bordering practices express the tensions arising from the conflictual roles taken on by civil society actors (CSAs) in their double vest of service delivery for the state and advocate for migrant women with a precarious legal status. Further, this study focuses on three types of CSAs: women-led NGOs, faith-based organizations, and other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) operating in two EU contexts, i.e., Sweden and Italy. The multi-study approach helps to bring to the forefront systems of knowledge and classifications that, on the one hand, are linked to the national sovereign power and its specific way of filtering people based on racialized and gendered socioeconomic categories and, on the other hand, produce spaces of resistance or negotiation of those categories within multiple forms of dominance. Ultimately, based on the empirical cases, it is argued that even though criticalities and limits expressed through re-bordering practices are highly present, these de-bordering practices manifest the efforts of CSAs to break down or transcend territorial borders and divisions with the ultimate goal of moving beyond legal entitlements, territorial boundaries, and nationalist ideologies.