From Angels to Fighters: Indian Nurses in Germany from the 1960s Till Today

The article introduces global care chains as migrant labour regimes that represent transnational axes of social reproduction and supply chains in the wake of globalisation. Since the 1960s, attempts have been made to solve the nursing shortage in German hospitals with a spatial fix, the transnational commodification and extraction of care in a cross-border market. In addition to the push and pull factors for this international division of reproductive labour framed by global structures of inequality, the autonomy of migration and the agency of the subjects are also taken into account. Based on biographical interviews, the empirical part compares the first generation of Indian nurses who came to Germany in the 1960s/1970s with those who have immigrated in the last 10 years. The categories analysed are their motivation, recognition, work and workplace, respect and discrimination, transnational family and, finally, their life perspective. The biographical narratives reflect ambivalences and contradictions, 50-year continuities, but also a growing autonomy. Despite massive constraints and marginalisation, they document great achievements in life, work and emancipation.