Control of Control: Strategies of Resistance and Autonomy of Agency of Women Migrants in the Contemporary and Historical Perspective

ABSTRACT
The article presents how gender-specific control is structured on different levels: at the level of national imagination; at the level of the mechanisms of the preservation of the traditional division of gender roles; and at the level of public discourses and cultural presentations. However, the main aim of the article is to overcome the dominant understanding and treatment of women migrants as victims of control mechanisms and migration policy. It presents some parallels between past and contemporary ways of control of control that are actively performed by women migrants as the actors in individual migration processes. By choosing strategies of survival and improvement of ways of life in the migration context, their agency and inventiveness overcome, resist and exploit the control mechanisms of migration for their own benefit.
KEY WORDS: women migrants, control, victimization, agency, resistance strategies, intersectionality

SUMMARY
CONTROL OF CONTROL: STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE AND AUTONOMY OF AGENCY OF WOMEN MIGRANTS IN THE CONTEMPORARY AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Mirjam MILHARČIČ HLADNIK

The text presents how gender-specific control is structured on different levels: at the level of nationalimagination women’s migrations are defined as a problem of a nation and a nation state; at the level ofsocial mechanisms for the preservation of the traditional family they are perceived as a threat to genderroles and the division of labour; at the level of public discourse women who migrate are the object of religiousand political stigmatization and moralising; and at the level of cultural presentations and racismthey are subjected to eroticization and normalization. The analysis of the selected cases offers parallelsamong the modes of control of women’s migrations and the modes of control and punishment of feminamigrans in the past and in the present. However, the main aim of the article is to overcome the dominantunderstanding and treatment of women migrants as victims of control mechanisms and migration policy.It presents some parallels between past and contemporary ways of control of control that are activelyperformed by women migrants as the actors in individual migration processes. By choosing strategiesof survival and improvement of ways of life in the migration context, their agency and inventivenessovercome, resist and exploit the control mechanisms of migration for their own benefit. The presentedexamples of the agency of women migrants in the transnational and global migration context include,among others, an analysis of the “self-managed” rotation system in the domestic sector (Morokvasic2013), the agency and empowerment of Filipino domestic workers (Briones 2009), the “self-fulfilment”of women migrants in Slovenia (Cukut Krilić 2009), the empowerment beyond vulnerability among Ecuadorianwomen migrants heading households in Spain (Davila Andrade 2014) and the strategies ofresistance of Slovenian domestic workers in the past and today (Milharčič Hladnik 2015; Hrženjak 2015).The selected examples show that it is important to understand, treat and research women migrants aspeople who are in control of their migration process and mobility, and who are inventive agents withinthe control mechanisms and structures of the contemporary global world.