Migrant Care Workers at the Intersection of Rural Belonging in Small English Communities

Abstract

Shortage of staff in the private care sector brought migrant participants of this study to rural communities in northwest England. The care workers, fourteen highly skilled first-generation migrants, described experiences of feeling unsettled, despite residing in these communities for an average of nine years. Social divisions, such as their race, ethnicity, and gender, intersected in rural England to create an overwhelming, at times, feeling of being othered. We use intersectionality as a framework to examine the advantageous and disadvantageous positionings of migrant workers, alongside their strategies of resistance and adaptation, filling in the gaps that acculturation theory glosses over.

Keywords:

• Migrant care workers
• rurality
• acculturation stress
• intersectionality
• othering

Acknowledgements

We would like to express gratitude to the participants of this study for their time and their invested trust, in helping us understand the challenges connected to settling in small, rural communities and their own resolve in overcoming these. We would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

1 Cuban S. (principal investigator). (2010). “Home/Work: The Roles of Education, Literacy, and Learning in the Social Networks and Mobility of Migrant Carers.” ESRC project, Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, 2008-2010.

2 ‘People and Society: Population and Migration’, Neighbourhood Statistics, Office for National Statistics, www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk (26/06/2013) – the exact webpage is not offered here in order to protect the anonymity of the participants.

3 Information derives from the ‘Resident Population Estimates by Broad Age Band (2001-2011)’, People and Society: Population and Migration, Neighbourhood Statistics, Office for National Statistics for the ward of Community B (accessed on 26/06/2013). The exact website is not offered to protect the participants’ anonymity, as the percentages of ethnic minorities in Community B are very small and individuals could be easily identifiable.