Dynamics of migration, consumption and gender: The case of Ukrainian migrant women in Sweden

Abstract: How do practices of migration, consumption and gender mutually shape each other in contemporary society? In this thesis, I am trying to partly address some aspects of this question by examining the consumption practices of Ukrainian migrant mothers in Sweden. Drawing on conceptual frames of gendered geographies of power and employing a practice theory as a meta-theoretical approach, I conducted fourteen semi-structured open-ended interviews with Ukrainian migrants. The thesis tentatively argues that among Ukrainian middle-class females decision-making process concerning migration to developed world is highly saturated with consumption-bound practices and ideas. Migration to Sweden was described by the respondents as a step to unlimited consumption opportunities for themselves and their children, access to developed markets and unfamiliar consumer identities and lifestyles. It is further argued that migrant mothers tend to construct their ideas about the nation-state they reside, its politics and regime, based on their gendered experiences of consuming welfare support, medical services, public spaces, schools etc. Finally, the thesis suggests that, as evident from this research project, structuring the consumption practices as the focal point of the sociological research is a rich, beneficial, and theoretically insightful analytical approach for examining gendered dynamics of power on the international scale, which will consequently lead to more nuanced, systematic and sophisticated understanding of the dialectical unity of gender, consumption and migration in contemporary western society.