This research project examines the post-WII migration of Caribbean women to Britain to train in nursing. The hypothesis of the project is that this migration is part of a strategy whereby women may seek to fulfill family and community obligations, pursue social mobility, and assert personhood and agency. With its focus on educational migration, the project aims to shed light on a form of physical, social and personal mobility that is poorly documented and understood, but which appears have considerable impact on migration processes, not only in the Caribbean, but also more broadly speaking. Fieldwork is based on open-ended life story interviews that generate data on actual life trajectories in Britain and the Caribbean and the ways in which individuals perceive of these trajectories and attribute meaning and purpose to them. Interviewees include 1) nurses who have stayed in Britain, 2) nurses who returned to undertake a career in the Caribbean when they had received their credentials, and 3) nurses who have spent most of their lives in Britain, but who have moved back to the Caribbean upon their retirement. The research takes places 2009-2013 and is supported by the Carlsberg Foundation and Aksel Tovborg Jensen’s Fund.
The project is carried out by Professor Karen Fog Olwig, Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.
