ABSTRACT
At the same time, migrant-centered research on labor mobility has shown that migration is a gendered phenomenon “which requires more sophisticated theoretical and analytical tools than were allowed in the past” (Donato et al. 2006, 4). Gender-sensitive research methodology, it is suggested, should include soft methods of data selection, processing, and analysis. Unfortunately, these new methods of research, highly productive in the study of a gender dimension of human mobility, are generally neglected in the Ukrainian social sciences. This explains why the key objective of this chapter is to focus on qualitative analysis and methods in the study of “gendered mobility strategies” (D’Ottavio 2006) of Ukrainian women working abroad, placing emphasis on specically female experiences of the transnational life as a mainly “solo-living1 migration pattern.” The social relevance of the chapter draws upon the demand in empirical studies of the lived stories of Ukrainian migrant women with an accent on the gender dimension of “socio-cultural risks” (Kindler 2008) in foreign employment and their emotional costs.
