Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to explore how Bulgarian migrant workers in Italy from different generations understand and use their rights to negotiate with their employees or institutions, and to examine interrelation between their identities, legal statuses, state policies of both countries and EU citizenship.

Paper long abstract:

After the collapse of state socialism, especially since the early 2000s, the migration including many women from Bulgaria to Western European countries dramatically increased. From the villages in the Lovech district, northern Bulgaria, where I have carried out fieldwork, a number of middle-aged mothers also made the choice to move as autonomous migrants and to work as live-in caregivers or domestic workers in Italy in order to send money "for their children" who were mainly teenagers and were studying in Bulgaria. These women decided to work abroad before Bulgaria joined the EU and most of them have at least several years of experience to work without a work permit on the one hand. On the other hand, in the past ten or more years, a part of their children has decided to work in Italy as an EU citizen after graduating from school in Bulgaria.

Drawing on a long-standing fieldwork in Bulgaria and on short-term fieldwork in Italy, this paper will show how Bulgarian migrant workers from different generations understand and use their political, economic and social rights to negotiate with their employees, or state and local institutions for better conditions and reveal if there is any difference of strategies and practices for demanding their rights between generations. Furthermore, we discuss interrelation between their identities, legal statuses, state policies of Bulgaria and Italy, and EU citizenship.