The nation as embodied practice: Women, migration and the social production of nationhood in Irelan

Over the past two centuries Ireland's renown has been as an emigrant nation, but since 1996, and associated with rapid economic growth, Ireland has emerged as an immigrant-receiving nation. Migration in any geographic setting raises issues regarding space and place, identity and belonging. In Ireland, the gendered character of migration further nuances these issues as, for most of the 20th century, migration by women consistently outnumbered migration by men. Thus, in Irish society understandings of place, identity, and national belonging are intertwined, through history and in the present, in complex and fascinating ways with women's migration. Focusing on the specific context of Ireland and taking migration among women as its locus, this research explores three facets of the intersections between women, migration and the social production of nationhood. Ireland's history of emigration is juxtaposed and critically examined alongside contemporary representations and practices of immigration. The links between women, as migrants, and nationhood are explored by examining the experiences of migrant women in Ireland today. These concerns dovetail a theoretical interest in exploring the relations between everyday social and spatial practices and the social production of the scale of the nation and belonging therein. Therefore, this study weaves together a number of theoretical strands including social theories of space and scale, literature on globalization and migration, and feminist analyses of embodiment. These influences are combined with a mixed-method qualitative approach that includes a review of Ireland's popular presses at key points during the 20th century and in recent years, and a series of semi-structured interviews with immigrant women. By threading the social production of the nation through the representations of em/im-migrant women in Ireland and also through experiences of everyday life recounted by refugee and asylum seeker migrant women in interviews, this research aims to further our knowledge of the relations between women's migration and understandings of nationhood in contemporary Irish society.