A Place of Settlement and Upheaval

Abstract

This chapter focuses on a microcosm of the worlds of migrant care assistants in elder care and how their struggles to survive created solidarity on the one hand and tightened their hold on the global care industry on the other. Capturing these participants’ daily work lives, as well as their mobility and networks, was important in understanding their adaptation strategies and perceptions. I interviewed 20 migrant domiciliary care assistants and drove around with ten of them at all hours of day and night for a year.¹ In this chapter, I profile their experiences of preparing for, and delivering, a new type of care service in Cumbria, a rural region in North West England. I argue that these participants’ constant driving and other hidden services they provided, while not included in policy discourses, was an important neglected area that warrants in-depth exploration to understand the local and global position of skilled migrant women in this industry.