“Cvajner’s excellent book, Soviet Signoras, investigates the human wreckage of geopolitical upheavals such as the end of 20th-century state socialism in 1991. . . . Through a series of beautifully crafted ethnographic chapters, Cvajner explains how these women forge a local ethnic community and transform themselves from middle-aged babushkas into sexy Slavic signore. . . . Soviet Signoras provides a poignant case study of how the collapse of state socialism precipitated a stark reduction in life opportunities for east European women. It also celebrates the tenacity and creativity of the human spirit in its ability to survive social catastrophe, a message we would all do well to remember.”

Times Higher Education

"Martina Cvajner’s book offers a deep insight into the complex individual and collective lives of Eastern European caregivers (badanti) in Northern Italy and is based on more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork. . . . Cvajner’s analysis illustrates how vulnerable and stigmatised women have been transformed by their migratory odysseys into resilient characters set upon attaining the desired status of respectability. The book is recommended reading for scholars interested in developments inmigration scholarship. The author’s use of ethnographic methods is exemplary. Overall, the book is a powerful and original account of the micro-society of ex-Soviet live-in carers in northern Italy."

Europe-Asia Studies

“Émile Durkheim meets Federico Fellini in an eye-opening, eye-level account of women who met the exigencies of post-Soviet-era poverty by emigrating to northern Italy in search of a new livelihood. Soviet Signoras is a gripping ethnographic portrait of bravery, insecurity, and personal transformation, replete with pathbreaking insights into the experiences of migrants confronting new cultural ways while endeavoring to keep faith with families left behind out of necessity. This book is bound to become an enduring part of the growing body of literature of migration studies.”

Elijah Anderson, author of The Cosmopolitan Canopy

“Cvajner has written an exquisite microsociology of the immigrant experience. Deeply sensitive to the inner lives of her post-Soviet subjects, she deftly portrays the interactional pressures they face and the opportunities they make the best of, tracing how they made new selves and became new women, sometimes in shockingly provocative ways. An extraordinary sociological study.”

Jeffrey Alexander, author of What Makes a Social Crisis?