Migratory and Intercultural Processes form a Gender Perspective: the Changing Roles of Migrant Women in the Countries of Origin and Destination, themed section

This editorial project aims to explore now-consolidated areas of multidisciplinary research like migration, the meeting of diverse cultures and religions and that of the networks of communities and associations, and to analyze them from a perspective of gender. It was chosen with the hope of adding new evidence to the extensive literature already in existence in regard to each of these issues, and proposes to integrate them through an analysis of those points of intersection whose protagonists are women. In many recent studies some famous scholars (Sen 2001 Sen, A., 2001. Development as freedom. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. [Google Scholar] , Touraine 2006 Touraine, A., 2006. Le Monde des Femmes. Paris: Fayard. [Google Scholar] ) have highlighted the important changes underway regarding women’s roles as social actors, particularly as regards the issue of their participation in highly developed societies and in the migration ‘outposts’ of those countries which are culturally less favorable towards the public role of women. The individual and collective implications of the progressive affirmation of women in singular contexts and social conditions, such as those produced by migration flows which witness at the same time the meeting of diverse cultural models – migrants from countries with a less tolerant view of female participation who arrive in societies with more advanced models – are very significant social processes. But the social research is just starting to explore them. One important question arises in respect of these social dynamics: is there a greater allocation of social roles for female migrants in the country of destination and, by extension, in their countries of origin too?