Seminar – 13 November – Sondra Cuban

N.B. This seminar is online-only, at 4pm GMT

Researching Historical Antecedents for Migration within the Context of Mongolia

Sondra Cuban, Western Washington University

This presentation addresses the different meanings and types of migration across time and space and how it undergirds the history of Mongolia. The discussion starts with contemporary migration trends and works backward to examine historical factors and framings of this phenomenon. It is a based on a study in 2022/2023 of three samples of 80 Mongolian migrant women; the first representing participants who migrated from the countryside to the city, another, who reversed course (returning to rural areas), and those who migrated to South Korea. I focus on the complexities of applying historical frameworks, in conjunction with gender, to migration, diaspora and mobility concepts and its implications. 

Sondra has been doing engendered migration research over the last two decades in the field of Mobility Studies (and Lancaster University’s CEMORE centre),  in different regions of the world, receiving grants from ESRC, European Commission, Oxfam, International Organization of Migration, and Fulbright. She has written: Deskilling Migrant Women in the Global Care Industry (Palgrave, 2013, in England), Transnational Family Communication: Immigrants and ICTs (Palgrave, 2017, in the U.S.) and Mapping Southern Routes of Migrant Women (Routledge, 2022, in Chile). Her forthcoming book on Mongolian women and migration will be out in 2026/27.