Narratives of coercive precarity experienced by mothers seeking asylum in the UK (Wales)

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of the UK’s racialized asylum system on mothers and their children. Asylum-seeking mothers in the UK are treated with hostility and suspicion and prohibited from basic socio-economic rights such as employment yet must also raise their children within this hostile environment. In this paper, based on a Thematic Narrative Analysis of interviews with refugee and asylum-seeking mothers in Wales, we argue that legalized hostility and exclusion are systemic coercive control. Using theories of social reproduction and coercive control, we explore the emotional and psychological impact of coercion on four women and show how this systemic coercive control leads to both the fracturing of families and the fracturing of motherhood. Through the analysis of asylum-seeking mothers’ experiences, we show that the coercion exerted on the women has direct and indirect impacts on their children through deprivation, isolation and fractured relationships.