From the general to the particular, from the theoretical to the practical, this work represents an interesting and documented journey through the phenomenon of migration from a gender perspective and as a connection between the sending and receiving societies (in both cases, and to varying degrees, with lots of homework to do). A task that, by extension, is a ‘user manual’ in the field of Social Work. Psychology, Sociology, Politics, Statistics, Economics… through a whole range of approaches (such as the phenomenological and systemic) for a global problem that affects us all and for which solutions are provided, from a holistic vision to the orientation of the focus on personal experience.
Francisco Gómez Gómez, full professor of the Department of Social Work and Social Services of the Complutense University of Madrid for more than 28 years, is currently Full Professor of the Department of Social Services and Historical-Legal Foundations of the Faculty of Law of the UNED.
Yolanda Díaz Perea, graduate in Sociology, graduate and diploma in Social Work, has been a professor at the Faculty of Social Work of the UCM as an associate professor, for more than 15 years. Two profiles that add up and complement each other for this social analysis, both documented in sources and worked on the ground, in which, for example, Kearney’s Articulation Theory coexists with the stark personal testimony of an interviewee.
Page by page, ‘Gender, work and family in immigrants. New trends in social work’, breaks down this migration path and analyzes the confluence of ways of thinking and living in a cultural clash not only between countries, but between continents. From the very introduction, the role of women in migration in a globalized world with great imbalances is described, such as that of the so-called ‘care crisis’, which finds solutions in the contribution of female labor from the migration rather than a more equitable distribution of tasks. It is the framework in which the authors propose the application of new trends in professional action “based on a systemic phenomenological approach, proposing self-reflection and change towards new ways of coping with and dealing with the crises that migration entails.”
The work highlights how, for decades, migrant women were associated as mere ‘companions’ of their partners, without considering their productive activities. an appreciation that studies carried out from feminism (and reality itself) have revealed as erroneous, with advances anchored, as the authors point out, in the ‘Women in Development’ current adopted by the specialized agencies of the United Nations in the 1975 decade. -1985. In this context, Gómez Gómez and Díaz-Perea provide instruments that allow improving professional services of a high scope in the field of Gender, Work and Family in immigrant people, in a time of globalization that promotes the increase in inequalities of gender.
This tour is based on a first part in which considerations about immigrants in Europe are detailed, about their motivations to emigrate, their networks and social conditions, their own perceptions about work and gender. A perspective of the ‘human factor’ that will be treated in the second part with the contribution of theoretical advances of practical application to contribute to the solution of the problem, in an ‘era of migrations’ defined in the reference ‘Female Immigration’ by four basic features: «Globalization, acceleration (quantitative increase), differentiation (various types of temporary, permanent immigrants, refugees…) and feminization of flows (women go from being passive agents of family reunification to becoming autonomous agents of the migratory project) ».
The work travels, therefore, an unstable universe of inequality, misunderstanding, racism, etc. which, in the case of women, increases its harmful potential. And it proposes the path so that, from self-affirmation and empowerment, the situation can be reversed as soon as possible in the ‘Well-being Society’, with the urgent need to establish an adequate regulatory framework (as the authors remind us, “until the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978, the legal framework was not created and it was not specified in an Organic Law on Immigration until 1985. The legislation was scarce and scattered».
This ‘roadmap’ has contributions such as, for example, that of an exhaustive report by the Community of Madrid or the V Report ‘Heroines of the 21st century’, prelude to a final part of the book in which stark personal testimonies are combined (and, therefore, familiar), with methodological representations of great interest to students and professionals in disciplines such as Social Work.
If the person, as Gómez Gómez and Díaz-Perea point out, is a bio-psycho-social being, the second part of the work supposes a mosaic of perceptions, emotions and feelings in which empathic understanding and active listening are fostered ( and work tools such as the family genogram) to be able to advance in the stormy world of misunderstanding and helplessness. Solutions, without a doubt, to deal with scenarios in which, unfortunately, abuse of all kinds (such as sexual -even in the child population-) are the order of the day. A very improvable world in which contributions such as «Gender, work and family in immigrants. New trends in social work» suppose injections of hope through work on the ground. A help for the ‘helpers’.
Title: ‘Gender, work and family in immigrants. New trends in social work’.
Authors: Francisco Gómez Gómez, Yolanda Díaz Perea.
Editorial UNED.
Year of edition: 2022.
Available in Editorial UNED.
Available on Unebook.
