Mothers on the Move : Reproducing Belonging Between Africa and Europe

The Massive Scale And Complexity Of International Migration Today Tends To Obscure The Nuanced Ways Migrant Families Seek A Sense Of Belonging. In This Book, Pamela Feldman-savelsberg Takes Readers Back And Forth Between Cameroon And Germany To Explore How Migrant Mothers Through The Careful And At Times Difficult Management Of Relationships Juggle Belonging In Multiple Places At Once: Their New Country, Their Old Country, And The Diasporic Community That Bridges Them. Feldman-savelsberg Introduces Readers To Several Cameroonian Mothers, Each With Her Own Unique History, Concerns, And Voice. Through Scenes Of Their Lives At A Hometown Association's Year-end Party, A Celebration For A New Baby, A Visit To The Foreigners' Office, And Many Others As Well As The Stories They Tell One Another, Feldman-savelsberg Enlivens Our Thinking About Migrants' Lives And The Networks And Repertoires That They Draw On To Find Stability And, Ultimately, Belonging. Placing Women's Individual Voices Within International Social Contexts, This Book Unveils New, Intimate Links Between The Geographical And The Generational As They Intersect In The Dreams, Frustrations, Uncertainties, And Resolve Of Strong Women Holding Families Together Across Continents. Introduction -- Cameroonian Predicaments -- Starting Cameroonian Families In Berlin -- Raising Cameroonian Families In Berlin -- Civic Engagement -- In The Shadow Of The State. Pamela Feldman-savelsberg. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 219-237) And Index. Mothers on the Move tells the story of Cameroonian migrants in Germany through the lives of women who navigate belonging—in Europe and in Africa—through birthing and caring for children. It explores the social strategies and community resources mothers mobilize when facing dilemmas engendered by migration. Cameroonian mothers sustain their goals of reproduction when they go abroad, although their international migration makes reproduction more difficult. As they say about Berlin, “It’s hard being a mother here.” By reproducing, mothers generate belonging for themselves and their children. Migration complicates belonging, stretching some connections to the breaking point while facilitating new ones. Through vivid case studies based on interviews with and ethnographic fieldwork among Cameroonian mothers, government bureaucrats, and humanitarian service providers, the book explores the strength and tenuousness of these connections. The ties Cameroonian women build are shaped by reproductive successes and insecurities experienced when migrant mothers pursue their ideal modern Cameroonian family while balancing the urban and regulatory demands of life in Berlin. To have and keep their children, Cameroonian mothers switch on and off emotionally-laden network ties—described through the metaphor of electric circuitry—with husbands, kin, co-ethnics, co-nationals, and German state and NGO workers. These networks require careful management, simultaneously facilitating the exchange of support and goods while contributing to women’s insecurity through the possibility of gossip and exposure to the “shadow” of state regulations. Interrelating concepts regarding reproduction, belonging, social networks, and legal conscious, this book offers an uplifting account of African migrants as mothers The massive scale and complexity of international migration today tends to obscure the nuanced ways migrant families seek a sense of belonging. In this work, Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg takes readers back and forth between Cameroon and Germany to explore how migrant mothers - through the careful and at times difficult management of relationships - juggle belonging in multiple places at once: their new country, their old country, and the diasporic community that bridges them