The essay discusses the development of a qualitative survey about the professional and gender identity of women working in international cooperation and specifically investigates the situation of Italian women in Mozambique during 2010. The discussion includes a variety of disciplinary and theoretical approaches ranging from feminism to psychology, to anthropology and migration studies. This research poses questions around the precariousness of personal and professional lives and the solitary search for professional development and analysis of sense pursued by those women in a world wide context.
Keywords: Cooperating women, professional identity, Mozambique, gender, whiteness, migration