Foreclosed futures and entangled timelines: conceptualization of the ‘future’ among Syrian newcomer mothers in Canada

ABSTRACT

Scholars have focused significant attention on geographic aspects of forced migration, as well as the economic, psychological, and cognitive outcomes of refugees’ movement across space. Less attention has been paid to temporal aspects of forced migration, particularly after refugees’ resettlement in a host society. Using semi-structured interviews with 41 Syrian mothers who recently arrived in Canada, I contribute to building theory on temporal dimensions of forced migration through an analysis of how refugee mothers conceptualise both their children’s and their own futures. First, I show how mothers’ perceptions of the future are heavily shaped by cultural and religious orientations of divine control, which may be out of sync with norms in their host society. I also identify two patterns demonstrating how space and time intersect. Displaced mothers deliberately ‘foreclose’ their own timeline in order to focus on their children’s future in Canada, feeling like their ‘selves’ could only grow in the former geographic space. Moreover, mothers do not separate their future projections from the present in Canada or from the past in Syria, leading to ‘entangled timelines.’ These findings suggest that scholarship on forced migration may continue to benefit from attention to how time and temporal experiences shape outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Mothers
• ‘Syrian refugee crisis’
• migration
• temporal
• culture

Acknowledgements

This paper would not have been possible without the women in this article who shared their experiences, concerns, and hopes in detail with RISE Team. I am also grateful to Neda Maghbouleh, Melissa Milkie, Josee Johnston, Ron Levi, and Phil Goodman for their endless support and guidance. I would also like to thank Grace Tran, Dana Wray, Erika Canossini, RISE Team members, and my cohort at the University of Toronto's Department of Sociology for encouraging me throughout the process of writing this paper, as well as the anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 For more information on the project expansion in 2018-2019, see www.riseteam.ca.

2 Approved under Research Ethics Board, University of Toronto. Protocol Reference: #33480, October 2016 – October 2018. The project was funded by the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

3 The lengths reported here reflect those of the audio recordings. However, these do not reflect the actual time spent in the participants’ presence, where continued conversations were had before and after recording.

4 Some experiences of mothering were also shared: Three of the RAs were either married and had children or were closer in age to participants. As an RA, I was able to build rapport through my migration experiences with my family and by connecting to younger mothers, despite not being married or having children.

5 Steps were followed to mitigate risk and protect participants’ identities. Interviewers asked participants verbally for their consent to participating and to being recorded, which was noted down in fieldnotes next to an assigned number for each participant, to ensure anonymity. Participants were also informed that participating was completely voluntary.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [Grant Number 494540].