‘I am still waiting for my papers but ʾinna Allāha maʿa al-ṣābirīn’: on religious temporality and agency in female marriage migrants’ precarious migration experiences

ABSTRACT

Building on postcolonial, feminist and gendered migration theories and the ‘turn to mobility’ this article aims to explore the agency of so-called low-skilled Moroccan female marriage migrants in Flanders (Belgium). More precisely, it aims to study how religious temporality plays a role and how it shapes their experiences in a specific context of migration and precariousness. It questions how these women invoke a religious temporality in confronting the uncertainties and difficulties of which motherhood and a precarious residency status are the most challenging and stigmatising. Firstly, focussing on two ethnographic vignettes this article empirically analyses their nonlinear, risky and often undocumented trajectories laying bare a politico-discursive temporality in marriage migration, motherhood and belonging. Secondly, it analyses how exactly these women tend to challenge this bureaucratic temporality. The analyses show that through their active engagement with sabr (patience) and tawakkul (reliance on God) these women become agents.

KEYWORDS:

• Migrant motherhood
• undocumented migrants
• Islam
• religious temporality
• agency

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the participants for trusting me and for sharing their intimate stories with me, without the many conversations and time spent together this article would not exist. As it is a revised version of the last chapter of my PhD dissertation I want to greatly thank Sarah Bracke, Nadia Fadil and Chia Longman for believing in it.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Translated as: God is with those who are patient.

2 This was part of a larger study on marriage migration, motherhood and integration (Miri 2020).

3 Since 2020 IVCA changed her name into Alma.

4 The logic of ‘citizenization’ in Western Europe and specifically in Flanders or Belgium demands that newcomers acquire information about certain cultural practices, languages, ethnicities and religions, laws, and the citizen’s legal rights.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek): [grant number G015515N].