Transnational Mothering in South Africa A Contemporary Approach

Glazer, Natasha

Transnational Mothering in South Africa A Contemporary Approach

Thesis / Dissertation

2023

Abstract

Literature on migration has been largely saturated by Global North and Asian narratives which as a result has led to an umbrella approach to migration experiences - such an approach negates the reality that experiences and knowledge of migration are relational and contextual. This dissertation, through the use of the contemporary approach to migration and qualitative interviews, will attempt to mitigate the above universalism by focusing on contextual specificities in a migration pattern that has so far been sidelined. This migration pattern is South-South and hones in on the lived realities of poor black undocumented transnational mothers in South Africa from the SADC region. Macro-level factors such as documentation, access to services and the labor market will be reviewed in the analysis, as well as micro-level factors such as mothering practices and relational definitions of motherhood. After which, this dissertation calls for the conceptual renegotiation of transnational mothering and the meaning of motherhood. By investigating diverging experiences and understandings to what have thus far been global hegemonies, this dissertation achieves its aim of recentering theory on migration and shifting knowledge on gender ideologies.

Keywords

Politics

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