Nineteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Gender (Im)mobilities in Precarious Situations (GIPS) is an action research project based on the intersection of gender inequalities and the specific realities of migrant women in situations of prolonged precariousness in Canada (Quebec) and Lebanon It advocates a Transnational decolonial feminist approach. The research and fieldwork with community organizations and migrant women, both in Lebanon and Quebec, is ongoing. So far, we conducted 24 individual interviews and 6 focus groups and we started the preliminary analysis showing the exacerbation of the labour conditions for migrants during the crisis, even when they are described as essential, “Essential work. Disposable workers”, according to Henaway (2023). It also highlights the gender distribution of labour and the exacerbation of gender-based violence, especially for women without status. To face this precarity, the migrant women develop different strategies such as relying on family and or community, volunteering but that could also be seen as a forced free work in the Canadian context, arts and activism. These strategies and the work of some community organizations, and despite/due to the numerous systemic and structural obstacles, empowerment happens, leading these women to taking up space and fighting, daily.