Dressing down to fit in: Analyzing (re)orientation processes through stories about Norwegianization

Abstract

This article addresses the relation between gender and social change in the context of east-west migration. Using a feminist phenomenologist and interpretative approach, the analysis shows that Russian female migrants in Northern Norway, although well-educated and generally well-integrated in the local labor market, often felt that they were on display and judged through their bodies. Their bodily visibility pushed them to make changes regarding their ways of appearing, dressing and in their migration status. We conclude that the migrants' self-consciousness, as well as their various ways of “becoming Norwegianized,” may be conceptualized as an effect of local, gendered stigmatizing processes.