Migrating for a Profession: Becoming a Caribbean nurse in post-WWII Britain

TY - JOUR

T1 - Migrating for a Profession

T2 - Becoming a Caribbean nurse in post-WWII Britain

AU - Olwig, Karen Fog

PY - 2015/5/4

Y1 - 2015/5/4

N2 - Youths from the Global South migrating for further education often face various forms of discrimination. This Caribbean case study discusses how conditions in the home country can provide a foundation for educational migration that helps the migrants overcome such obstacles and even develop a strong sense of agency and self-empowerment. In the post-WWII period, numerous Caribbean women trained in nursing at British hospitals that have been described as marred by race and gender related inequality and associated forms of exploitation. Yet, the nurses interviewed about this training emphasised its high quality and downplayed the problems encountered. This positive attitude, it is argued, must be understood in the light of the key ideological role of education, particularly for a profession, as an avenue of social and personal mobility in the late-colonial Caribbean societies and the ways in which it enabled these Caribbean women to stake out a new life for themselves.

AB - Youths from the Global South migrating for further education often face various forms of discrimination. This Caribbean case study discusses how conditions in the home country can provide a foundation for educational migration that helps the migrants overcome such obstacles and even develop a strong sense of agency and self-empowerment. In the post-WWII period, numerous Caribbean women trained in nursing at British hospitals that have been described as marred by race and gender related inequality and associated forms of exploitation. Yet, the nurses interviewed about this training emphasised its high quality and downplayed the problems encountered. This positive attitude, it is argued, must be understood in the light of the key ideological role of education, particularly for a profession, as an avenue of social and personal mobility in the late-colonial Caribbean societies and the ways in which it enabled these Caribbean women to stake out a new life for themselves.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Caribbean

KW - education

KW - mobility

KW - nursing

KW - life stories

KW - subjectivity

U2 - 10.1080/1070289X.2014.939188

DO - 10.1080/1070289X.2014.939188

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1070-289X

VL - 22

SP - 258

EP - 272

JO - Identities - Global Studies in Culture and Power

JF - Identities - Global Studies in Culture and Power

IS - 3

ER -