ABSTRACT
In previous chapters, we have seen that native and migrant women’s associations have experienced most of their success at the grassroots level. a national women’s movement that combines the experiences of Italian and immigrant women has been much more difficult to sustain. This chapter examines the relationship of grassroots movements to international organizing efforts. For migrant women’s associations, participation in projects that extend beyond the confines of the host nation has given them the opportunity to build larger lobbying networks and to compare the situations of migrant women across Europe. at the same time, however, problems such as access to resources and funding locally are sometimes accentuated when migrant women attempt to work across borders. on the European and international levels,
migrant women have faced particular obstacles to their participation, which continue to draw attention to the tenuous status of women who have left their home countries but who have not yet been fully recognized by their new host countries. Nonetheless, I want to suggest that migrant women are finding that international cooperative strategies may benefit foreign women in Europe in ways not possible at the local level alone. By constructing networks with other grassroots groups, European women’s lobbyists, the European Union, and international non-governmental organizations (NGos), migrant women are finding ways to bypass obstacles they find in their local contexts. Migrant women’s associations in Italy are turning increasingly to international activist strategies as they attempt to help women in their communities. Moreover, their interest in the situation of migrant women in Europe is bringing migrant women’s leaders into closer contact with native feminists as all interested women attempt to come to terms with the meanings of globalization and the impact of female migrations worldwide.
