Migrating Mothers’ Experiences of Motherhood and Mothering in an ever-globalizing World.

Abstract: Female migrants comprise half of the worlds migrating people today. Modern ideals of mothering and motherhood entail mothers staying at home to care for their children, mother’s having to migrate away from their families contradicts current (modern) values. This thesis aims at investigating how mothers experience migration, and how their ethnicity, class and location affect their migrational experience. It also looks at how ideals of mothering and motherhood are shaped and how they are reflected in migrant mothers’ lives. This study is based on a qualitative ethnographic interview method. Through the recollections and experiences of five transnational mothers (who either are or who have been living away from their children) I have established common themes. The themes are also established by the use of intersectionality as the overarching theoretical framework. The themes regard ethnicity, push and pull factors behind the mother’s migration, and socio-economic opportunities. There is also focus on the migrant mother’s experiences of domestic and motherwork, both professionally and in their personal lives. The results of the thesis show how ambivalent and contradictory mothers’ experiences of migration can be. I argue that the modern ideals of mothering need to be rebranded to ease the societal stigma regarding transnational mothering; this seems necessary because the gap between the Global North and South is growing larger and because of this migration flows are not likely to decrease.