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The feminization of survival: alternative global circuits

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Crossing Borders and Shifting Boundaries

Abstract

The last decade has seen a growing presence of women in a variety of cross-border circuits. These circuits are enormously diverse but share one feature: they are profit- or revenue-making circuits developed on the backs of the truly disadvantaged. They include the illegal trafficking in people for the sex industry and for various types of formal and informal labor markets as well as other cross-border migrations, both documented and not, which have become an important source of hard currency for governments in home countries. The formation and strengthening of these circuits is in good part a consequence of broader structural conditions. Among the key actors emerging out of these broader conditions are the women themselves in search of work, but also, and increasingly so, illegal traffickers and contractors as well as governments of home countries.

This is a revised version of the article “Countergeographies of globalization: The femi-nization of survival” originally published in Journal of International Affairs (Spring) 53, no.2: 503–524, (2000).

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  1. Saskia Sassen
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Mirjana Morokvasic Umut Erel Kyoko Shinozaki

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Sassen, S. (2003). The feminization of survival: alternative global circuits. In: Morokvasic, M., Erel, U., Shinozaki, K. (eds) Crossing Borders and Shifting Boundaries. Schriftenreihe der Internationalen Frauenuniversität »Technik und Kultur«, vol 10. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-09529-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-09529-3_4

  • Publisher Name: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden

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