Forced Migrants, Active Mothers or Desired Wives: Migratory Motivation and Self-Representation in Kosovo Albanian and Russian Women's Biographies

Abstract

All forms of migration have fundamental repercussions in terms of family networks and obligations. This article investigates how women of refugee and migrant background view their deliberative capacities in making choices and how this combines with their self-representation as mothers, daughters and wives. What are the fundamental motivations immigrant women represent as legitimate explanations for their migrancy, in their own eyes and in the eyes of the receiving society? The material consists of biographic interviews carried out in 2006 with Kosovo Albanian and Russian women who have settled in Finland. Kosovo Albanian refugee women prefer to explain their migratory motivation as a result of their role as dedicated mothers rather than as people forced to flee. In turn, many female immigrants of Russian background have adopted a tendency to represent themselves as ‘passive migrants’ pushed by others' actions to leave Russia. This study shows that the ways in which immigrant women understand their womanhood and initiative in the migratory process not only reflect the socio-cultural characteristics of the sending society they have been socialised in, but also the available migratory channels and attitudes towards them in the receiving society.

Keywords:

• Family Migration
• Refugees
• Motherhood
• Couple Relationships
• International Marriage
• Finland

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Attila Melegh for supervising the larger comparative project in which the material was collected and for giving support in the process of engaging in the use of the biographical narrative analysis. Anna Rotkirch and Marja Tiilikainen as well as two anonymous JEMS referees offered most constructive and learned comments that were crucial for developing the argument. All responsibility for the shortcomings rests, however, solely on the author. I would also like to thank Ismo Söderling (Population Research Institute, Helsinki) and Pirkko Pitkänen (University of Tampere) for giving me an opportunity to work on this article while employed on their projects.

Notes

1. Gender is here understood as a system of mutually reinforcing relations and an ongoing negotiation of power that derives from the observed reality of sexual difference (see e.g. Mahler and Pessar 2006; Moore 1994).

2. Since the 1990s, some elements of a periodical ‘housewife culture’ have entered the Finnish gender system.

3. FEMAGE—Needs for female immigrants and their integration in ageing societies. The project is funded by the European Commission's Sixth Framework Programme on Research and Development, and coordinated by Prof. Charlotte Höhn, Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung, Wiesbaden, Germany (Contract number SSP4-CT-2005-022355). The writing of this essay was carried out under a research project funded by the Academy of Finland (Contract No. 121 626/2007).

4. Since the early 1990s, it has been possible for people with ethnic Finnish ancestry (either two grandparents or one parent who were ethnic Finns) living in Russia or Estonia to migrate to Finland as ‘return migrants’.

5. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and translated into English for this article. Some grammatical errors are revised in order to enhance intelligibility. A dash (-) refers to a pause and double dash (--) to a longer pause, full stops (…) refer to an omitted word and words in parentheses [] refer to additions and explanations supplied by the author.

6. According to Bertaux-Wiame (1981: 257), women tend to build their stories around relationships and men more around occupation and action, which is reflected in women's tendency to hide their agency behind the ubiquitous use of ‘we’ and the passive voice. Because these are gendered cultural conventions, the use of ‘I’ and ‘we’ cannot be directly interpreted as signs of feeling of agency. However, what is revealing is the way such pronouns are interlinked, and the largely unconscious shifts between the two within a narrative account.

7. Dahinden (2008) has pointed out that the ethnic Albanian migrants in Switzerland are divided, among other features, according to type of residence permit.

8. Here, I do not intend to evaluate the motivations behind international marriages; they are many and varied. The tendency to categorise marriages either as love marriages or marriages of convenience does not do justice to reality: in every marriage, be it national or international, we may find a multitude of motivations in a continuum between practical and romantic inspiration.