ERC Consolidator Grant awarded to MACIMIDE researcher Brigitte Le Normand

Brigitte Le Normand has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant for her project ‘Women Migrants from the Northern Mediterranean and Work in Postwar Northwestern Europe’ (FeMMiWork). The common belief about postwar migration in Europe is that it was predominantly men who moved from southern Europe to work in the booming economies of northwestern Europe. However, this assumption is incorrect – women made up 25-30% of these migrants. Despite this, their contributions have been largely erased by policymakers and forgotten by researchers who portrayed labour migration as a male phenomenon.

To address this gap, Brigitte’s research project will create a ‘counter-archive’ using documents, oral histories, and creative writing to reconstruct the experiences of women migrants from Italy, Yugoslavia, and Turkey. Using a transnational lens that includes countries of origin and destination, the study will focus on their lives in France and West Germany between 1955 and 1985, exploring how gender, ethnicity, and nationality shaped their work and migration experiences. The project will run from 2025 to 2030, and will also include two PhDs and a postdoctoral researcher.