MELLON FELLOW ISABELLE BARKER FOLLOWS WORKERS FOLLOWING JOBS AROUND THE WORLD

Isabelle Barker's mother, who came to the United States from France as an au pair in the 1960s, will say she is responsible for her daughter's interest in immigration, particularly as it relates to women. But Barker, who is Bryn Mawr's Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in International Studies, gives a different reason.

After graduating from Wesleyan University magna cum laude with honors in women's studies in 1994, she worked as a paralegal and translator for an immigration attorney in New York. She had a client, an Algerian woman, who, because she lacked proper papers to enter the United States, had been incarcerated at a detention center outside the Newark airport.

"It was like a prison," recalls Barker. "The cinder block cells had no windows, and the detainees weren't allowed outside.

"I was in my mid-20s, and it was an eye-opening experience as to what our border really means."

Barker later attended Rutgers University, where she completed her Ph.D. in political science in 2004. In her dissertation, she focused on labor migration and its linkage to countries' increasing dependence on the private sector to supply their citizens' social needs. She was particularly interested in how the changing world economy has resulted in a greater reliance on female immigrants.

"Increasingly, we're seeing workers migrating to other countries for better jobs and pay," claims Barker. "At the same time, a lot of wealthy countries are shifting the responsibility for social services to the private sector — to individuals and their families."

This reorganization of social programs and globalization have resulted in greater numbers of women migrating from their home countries, where there may be few jobs, to fulfill social needs such as child and elder care in other countries, where the pay may be higher. In her case study of Filipina women who migrate to the United States, she found that many of them are nurses or work in some capacity as health-care providers.

At the same time, notes Barker, researchers who study economic development in Third World countries are seeing a different model of migration from a decade ago. Immigrant workers are sending significant amounts of their income back to their home countries. For some developing economies, these remittances represent one of the largest sources of foreign currency.

"As a result, countries including the Philippines, which have an annual 'migrant day' holiday, have taken an interest in maintaining connections with their citizens overseas," explains Barker.

"They don't really want them to assimilate and become part of the host country."

Barker's research interests also extend to a study of Pentecostalism, which she believes relates to global economic changes and their impact on labor. She argues that followers of this charismatic religion claim that true believers will be blessed with material wealth, well-being and health.

"People who are adjusting to rapid economic changes in their country, or who may be losing their jobs or don't have the security of lifelong careers, find this theology to be reassuring," says Barker.

This semester, Barker is teaching a course in citizenship and migration, examining the phenomenon of transnational identity — how migrants maintain contacts in two different countries, and how that changes what it means to be a member of a political community or society.

"It forces us to expand and think beyond our traditional national boundaries," says Barker.

In the past, she has participated in discussions on indigenous people's rights, women's rights and the politics of immigration at conferences by the American Political Science Association. As part of the Center for International Studies and Bryn Mawr's political science department, Barker hopes to organize a daylong conference in spring 2007 to address these and other migration issues.

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