ABSTRACT
This chapter examines two disempowering contexts, underpinned by imposing repressive and exploitative structures. Instead of analysing how refugee women are being pushed around within these structurally imposing systems or how they are victimized by exploitation and/or violence, it explores their agency by examining the micro level structures of their day-to-day lives. The chapter then emphasizes how exile and settlement experiences, may become processes through which they resist as they gradually recuperate power over their lives by creating or opening themselves up to new opportunities. It also explores the role and meaning of paid domestic work in the lives of women refugees by examining multiple and intersecting factors that shape their settlement goals, aims, survival strategies and experiences in exile. Finally, the chapter focuses on gendered experiences of settlement of women who fled war-torn Yugoslavia and found refuge in Rome.
