SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This introduction studies the experiences of racialized migrant women by focusing on three analytical dimensions: mothering, including care work and reproduction; legal precarity caused by the encounter with migration and border regimes; and gendered racialization. It argues that by applying the lens of motherhood to the study of migration and forced displacement, different perspectives and insights emerge on women's decision-making processes and strategies. These perspectives emphasize how the overlap of migration experiences, legal precarity, and gendered racialization within global asylum and border regimes reconfigure women’s relations with their children, kin ties, sense of personhood, intimacies, and belonging. Ultimately, this introduction suggests that the study of the triangular interconnection of motherhood, legal precarity and gendered racialization sheds light on various scales and spheres: from perspectives on emotional and psychological challenges to everyday realities, from the intimate to the public sphere, including both larger structural processes and individualized experiences.