The Migrant Maternal: Birthing New Lives Abroad

Download or read book The Migrant Maternal: Birthing New Lives Abroad written by Schultes Anna Kuroczycka and published by Demeter Press. This book was released on 2016-10-01 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume explores how and why immigrant/refugee mothers’ experiences differ due to the challenges posed by the migration process, but also what commonalities underline immigrant/refugee mothers’ lived experiences. This book will add to the field of women’s studies the much-needed discussion of how immigrant and refugee mothers’ lives are dependent on cultural, environmental and socio-economic circumstances. The collection offers multiple perspectives on migrant mothering by including ethnographic and theoretical submissions along with mothers’ personal narratives and literary analyses from diverse locales: New Zealand, Japan, Canada, The United States, Turkey, Italy and the Netherlands among others. The first section of the volume focuses on mothers’ roles in the family institution and the pressures and responsibilities they face in “creating” and “reproducing” families physically and socially. The second section shifts its attention to children and highlights mothers’ continued roles in the development of their children abroad, along with the gendered/generational dynamics in the settlement process and the resultant effects on motherhood responsibilities. In all chapters, readers will find how women negotiate their traditional roles in a new sociocultural milieu, and how mothering processes are critical in creating connections with traditions and homelands.