Becoming a Migrant Mother: An Intersectional Approach to the Narratives of Cape Verdean Women in Portugal

Júlia Neves
Additional contact information
Júlia Neves: Centro de Investigação e Estudos de Sociologia, ISCTE—Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 2, 1-16

Abstract: Becoming a mother in the context of migration configures itself as a dynamic process of identity constitution that raises questions about citizenship, belonging, and migration policies. Furthermore, it is a process that involves a new set of maternal positions and practices that are composed through possibly conflicting cultural values. Based on the occurrence of unplanned pregnancies, this study sought to analyze the dimensions crossed by this event through an intersectional perspective of the narratives of Cape Verdean immigrant women who had children in Portugal, focusing on gender, migration, race/ethnicity. In-depth interviews were conducted with nine women, born in Cape Verde and residing in Greater Lisbon, through the Biographic-Narrative Interpretative Method (BNIM), which enabled an approach to the different dimensions that intersect in life stories of becoming an immigrant mother. Thematic analysis was chosen as an analytical tool, and the framework provided by intersectionality allows us to see the multiple identities that shape the processes of becoming a migrant mother. The results brought to light themes and issues that overlap and make motherhood more complex in the context of migration, highlighting and reinforcing the conditions of inequality.

Keywords: migration; becoming a mother; narratives; intersectionality; BNIM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/2/55/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/2/55/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:11:y:2022:i:2:p:55-:d:738373

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().