Migrating for a profession: becoming a Caribbean nurse in post-WWII Britain

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• Caribbean
• education
• mobility
• nursing
• life stories
• subjectivity

Notes

1. The terms ‘West Indian’ and ‘Caribbean’ can be used interchangeably, but ‘West Indian’ is used here mainly to refer to the British colonies and their subjects.

2. The interviewed nurses’ help is gratefully acknowledged as is economic support from Aksel Tovborg Jensens Legat, the University of Copenhagen and the Carlsberg Foundation. I have benefited from comments on earlier versions of the paper presented at London South Bank University, University of Oxford, Australian Association for Caribbean Studies, National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore, St. Andrews University, University of Sussex, Aarhus University and San Diego State University.

3. Two nurses of Caribbean background born in Britain as well as three male nurses and two female care assistants born in the Caribbean were also interviewed. Limitations of space prevent an analysis of these interviews, and the light they can shed on issues of gender and class within the nursing profession.

4. For another study emphasising the nurses’ agency, see Flynn’s (2011) monograph on West Indian nurses who migrated to Canada upon completion of their British training.

5. This changed when the University of the West Indies was established in 1948.

6. Seacole travelled to Britain and, like Florence Nightingale, cared for British soldiers in the Crimean War. She never achieved the social recognition Nightingale enjoyed in British society (Rappaport 2005; Salih 2005).

7. Fever hospitals treated patients with high fever caused by various illnesses. When they closed during the 1960s, the fever nurses had to retrain.

8. When the qualifications were formalised in 1962, SRN training required five O-levels, SEN training two O-levels (Webb 2000, 116).

9. All the interviewed SEN-trained nurses, except for one who became ill, eventually upgraded their training.

10. For a study of Irish nurses, who trained in the post-WWII period, see Ryan (2007).

11. Some responded to a call by their Caribbean country of origin for educated nationals to return.

12. Some nurses did stay. An analysis of their situation is beyond the scope of this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Karen Fog Olwig

KAREN FOG OLWIG is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at University of Copenhagen.