Mothering (un)belonging: Politics of care in the new wave of Turkish outmigration

Abstract

A new wave of migrants has been leaving Turkey in increasing numbers. This wave has multiple, intersecting master narratives: brain drain, flight, and lifestyle migration. A less visible characteristic is that many migrant women have been coming together under the banner of motherhood on social media. Based on semi-structured interviews with 36 migrant mothers, this article illustrates how this new wave of migrants also needs to be viewed in light of the contemporary politics of the family in the country. I examine how women’s socially determined reproductive responsibilities inform their migration motivations as well as experiences. Migration leads to a re-distribution of care responsibilities between the state, the market and the family, which transforms women’s experience of reproductive in/security. However, achieving the actual promise of reproductive security requires new struggles against the threat of ethnicization and transformations in class identity in destination countries. This article focuses on education as an area of state-family relations, where the re-distribution of care responsibilities most impacted women’s sense of reproductive security and belonging. Such a reading of the new wave of migrants highlights how care relations constitute a site of intersectional belonging at both ends of the migration journey and thus contributes to the growing literature on migrant mothering.