On the Shoulders of Grandmothers: Gender, Migration, and Post-Soviet Nation-State Building

Gendered migrant subjectivities are a key site for understanding the production of neoliberal capitalism and Ukrainian nation-state building, a fraught process that places Ukraine precariously between Europe and Russia with dramatic implications for the political economy of the region. The Ukrainian state, in order to fulfil its First World aspirations of joining Europe and distancing itself from all things Soviet, is pursuing a gendered reorganization of family and work structures to achieve a transition from socialism to capitalism. Looking at individual migrant women and men and their families in Ukraine allows us to see the production of neoliberal capitalism and new nationalism from the ground up and the outside in for a region that promises to be a flashpoint in our century.. Solari shows that this post-Soviet economic transformation requires a change in the moral order as migrant women struggle to understand how to be "good" mothers and grandmothers and men join women in attempts to teach their children to be successful and honorable people, now that the social rules have drastically changed. Solari c

. Solari is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her papers on gender, migration, and nationalism have been published in journals such as Gender & Society, The Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and The American Behavioral Scientist. Cinzia D

The book is a must read for students and scholars studying gender, migration and nationalism in the 21st century. In her examination of the effects of this process, Solari charts a bold new course for an innovative study of post-socialist societies in transition." -- Marian Rubchak, author of New Imaginaries: Youthful Reinvention of Ukraine's Cultural Paradigm. Solari’s examination of post-Soviet life for Ukrainian women and their families shows how newly idealized neo-liberal versions of the nuclear family are made possible by the migrant labor and sacrifices of a generation of middle-aged and older women, babushka grandmothers who migrate across continents to earn remittances that will sustain nuclear families back home. "Why would a well-educated, middle-aged Ukrainian woman leave behind a beloved child or grandchild to care for