Tacit Strategies of Labor Migration Management in Senior Care Homes at the European (Semi)Periphery

The article discusses affective management of care migration in state-governed care homes in Slovenia. Through the theoretical lens of the affective turn and interviews with stakeholders and migrant care workers, the analysis discloses tacit organizational strategies of mobilizing migrants’ intimacy, emotions, and affects as instruments of and targets for managing labor migration. The findings indicate that in a situation of extreme labor shortage, care home management uses emotionally loaded, allegedly migrant-worker-friendly strategies, while the state reinforces the transnational hierarchical care regime based on the intersectionality of gender, race, and class to maintain the public costs of senior care low.