Between formal exclusion and new forms of belonging: Latin American undocumented women in Germany

By drawing upon findings from my empirical research conducted with undocumented Latin American women in Germany, the aim of this paper is to examine a specific configuration of formal exclusion and practices of belonging, with particular attention being paid to its gendered and racialized conditions and effects.

Taking the production of ‘illegality’ in the German context as a starting point, this paper will analyse the different ways through which undocumented migrant women contest their precarious status and negotiate new forms of belonging. Focusing on their activist engagement in community organisations and migrants’ rights advocacy groups, this paper will examine under which conditions undocumented Latin American women become engaged as activists and which material and symbolic resources (e.g. pre-migratory political engagement, cultural capital, the recourse to familiar / cultural traditions) do they therefore mobilize in a society where their existence is criminalized.

Given the fact that domestic work in private households is one of the largest employment sectors for undocumented Latin American women in Germany, the formation of activist subjectivities that challenge the national logic of legitimate belonging is closely related to the work they perform at their employers’ households. In their narratives, they claim the right to belong based on the care responsibilities they assume: they see themselves as providers of services that are crucial to the functioning of German society and link their notions of rights and responsibilities to the work they perform in the private sphere.

On the methodological plane, I argue that a narrative approach offers a privileged vantage point for understanding the processual dynamics and interplay between the precarious status and formal exclusion of undocumented Latin American women, and their participation in community organisations and migrants’ rights advocacy groups.