Migrant mothers and the geographies of belonging

Abstract

Much academic research on migrant mothers focuses on mothers who are separated from their children, often through their integration into global care chains, or on mothers within the context of family migration. This paper argues that co-resident migrant mothers' experiences provide an important window on the complexities of the migration experience. Using a specific case study of Ireland, and drawing from a broader longitudinal research project that focuses on recent migrants, the paper explores migrant mothers' understandings and experiences of belonging and not-belonging. We argue that structural obstacles and cultural understanding of care actively conspire to undermine migrant mothers' potential to develop place-belongingness. Interviewees' discussions of their status as full-time mothers were often framed through images of ideal motherhood, but equally highlighted how the absence of affordable childcare and family members isolates them and prevents them from creating a sense of belonging outside of the process of mothering and the home.

Madres migrantes y las geografías de la pertenencia

Gran parte de la investigación científica en madres migrantes se centra en las madres que son separadas de sus niñxs, a menudo a través de su integración a las cadenas de cuidado global, o en madres dentro del contexto de la migración de la familia. Este trabajo sostiene que las experiencias de las madres migrantes co-residentes nos brindan una importante ventana por la cual observar las complejidades de la experiencia de migración. Utilizando un estudio de caso específico de Irlanda, y basándose en un proyecto de investigación longitudinal más amplio que se centra en migrantes recientes, este trabajo explora las formas de entender y las experiencias que las madres migrantes tienen sobre la pertenencia y la no pertenencia. Sostenemos que los obstáculos estructurales y las formas culturales de entender el cuidado conspiran activamente para socavar el potencial de las madres migrantes para desarrollar su pertenencia al lugar. Las discusiones de las entrevistadas sobre su estatus como madres a tiempo completo a menudo fueron enmarcadas a través de imágenes de maternidad ideal, pero igualmente destacaron cómo la ausencia de lugares accesibles donde dejar a sus niños y de los miembros de su familia las aislaba y les impedía crear un sentido de pertenencia fuera del proceso de la maternidad y el hogar.

移民母亲与归属感的地理

已有诸多针对移民母亲的学术研究，聚焦经常是经由整合进全球照护链而与孩子分离的母亲，或是全家移民脉络中的母亲。本文主张，移民母亲共同居住的经验，对于移民经验的复杂性，提供了重要的理解窗口。本文运用一特定的爱尔兰案例研究，并使用聚焦晚近移民的更广泛的长程研究计画，探讨移民母亲对于归属感与缺乏归属感的理解和经验。我们主张，结构性的障碍，以及对照护工作的文化理解，主动且共同导致了侵蚀移民母亲建立地方归属感的潜力。受访者对于其做为全职母亲的身份之讨论，经常透过理想的母职意象框架之，却也同样强调，缺乏可负担的育儿照料和家庭成员的不在场，使她们受到孤立，并使其无法在母职过程和家庭之外创造归属感。

Keywords::

• migration
• mothers
• belonging
• not-belonging
• care
• Ireland

Palabras claves:

• migración
• madres
• pertenencia
• no-pertenencia
• cuidado
• Irlanda

关键词::

• 移民
• 母亲
• 归属感
• 缺乏归属
• 照护
• 爱尔兰

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences and the research assistance of Elaine Burroughs and Owen McCarney. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an ESF Conference on ‘Home, Migration and the City’ in Sweden in August 2010, and we are grateful to the organizers of that conference, Ayona Datta and Kathy Burrell, and the other conference attendees, for their observations and insights. We also thank the anonymous reviewers of this paper who made very helpful suggestions for improvement. We particularly thank the research participants for sharing their stories about life in Ireland with us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Email: [email protected]

^2. Raghuram takes this term from the work of Shahra Razavi, who describes the care diamond as ‘the architecture through which care is provided’ (2007, 21).

^3. The term ‘citizenship tourist’ was used to describe a pregnant woman coming to Ireland primarily for the purposes of giving birth (White and Gilmartin 2008).

^4. Interviewees are identified by the year of arrival (either 2004 or 2007), nationality (USA, UK, GER, IR, SA, POL, GER) and a numeric identifier. Second interviews are indicated by the use of ‘b’.

^5. In Ireland, rental accommodation is typically furnished, so it can be difficult to set up home with personal possessions in a rented apartment or house.

^6. In Ireland, it is customary for parents to accompany their children to school during most of their time at primary school.

^7. In Denmark, this was primarily because having children limited the options for migrant women to learn Danish. Language proficiency was not an issue for the women who participated in our research.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was based on a broader research project entitled “Towards a dynamic approach to research on migration and integration” funded by the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Notes on contributors

Mary Gilmartin

Mary Gilmartin is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Her recent research focuses on the geographies of contemporary migration to and from Ireland, and on theorizations of migration. She recently co-edited Migrations – Ireland in a Global World (Manchester University Press, 2013, with Allen White).

Bettina Migge

Bettina Migge is an Associate Professor in Linguistics at University College Dublin. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, language contact, and language and migration, and she has published widely on questions of language contact and language use among migrant populations. Her recent book on Exploring Language in a Multilingual Context (with Isabelle Léglise) was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012.