Learning Dynamics in Feminine Precarious Migration. A Qualitative Perspective

Consenting theories on learning consider it as a dynamic process, which all lifelong, nourishes itself from experience. This epistemological perspective had many practical consequences in the social field and immigration is one of the most concerned areas. This article focuses on learning processes related to precarious feminine migration. Its empirical starting point consists in an ongoing qualitative research on African migrant women – asylum seekers and irregular immigrants. We shall focus on the diverse modalities individuals use to transform migration experiences in sources of social learning, based on three case studies, three women’s migration narratives. From a biographical paradigm perspective, we will analyse the relation between experiential learning and the process of becoming a subject, such as it appears in these narratives. As a transition period marked by cultural and identity ruptures, precarious migration involves for those concerned an important biographical work. The result is individuals’ transformation within a dynamics of empowerment as in (re)gaining power onto one’s life. Change of life involves the constant capacity to self re-invention and change of the past means being able to give it value in a future perspective.