Social intervention for migrated women: a space of/for the configuration of differences and subjectivities

Abstract

Social resources aimed at work inclusion, destined by the reception societies for migrated populations, are spaces that framed within power/knowledge dynamics (Foucault, 1984) configure subjectivities and subjects. Strategies of social differentiation are put at work within social intervention practices, employing diverse differentiation categories (Brah, 1996) that comply with the creation of the “local” and “immigrant” subject. Categorizations that can give shape to social exclusion processes and/or material inequities. This paper analyses the relationship between the professionals and the women clients of these resources, as one of the focal points where these processes of differentiation are put into practice in the reception society. The investigation was carried out in eight social services, private and public, in the city of Barcelona. By means of an intersectional analysis (Crenshaw, 1991), these spaces are seen as the possibility for practices of subjectivity production, not only for the users, also for the professionals that work in these services.