Paper short abstract:

Afghan women making state-unauthorised overland journeys through Serbia to seek safety in the European Union continue to experience pregnancy and new motherhood while on the move, yet social infrastructures can reproduce harms as well as offer safety, impacting their mobility and their wellbeing.

Paper long abstract:

Serbia is a country through which forcibly displaced Afghans commonly pass, when travelling overland without state authorisation to seek international protection in western European Union (EU) countries. Pregnancy and new motherhood continue for unknown numbers of Afghan women who transit through Serbia. Drawing on ethnographic research I conducted between 2021 and 2022, and applying a decolonial feminist lens, I show how new motherhood ruptured Afghan women’s onward mobility, and the impact of these ruptures for themselves and their newborns. I foreground how social infrastructures and spaces occupied by Afghan mothers on the move through Serbia played contradictory roles in facilitating / decelerating onward movement and supporting / harming mothers and their newborns. These contradictions were caused largely by the trickling down of racialised EU migration policy that ultimately shaped the everyday experiences of Afghan expectant and new mothers occupying spaces that often failed to provide respite, safety, and support at a critical juncture in their lives. Increased controls enacted by the Serbian state over social infrastructure accessed by refugees, in addition to reduced funding for non-state-led social infrastructure, reduced spaces available to Afghan mothers for social connectivity and rest in between journeys. Contrary to hegemonic discourses among state and non-state actors, my research found that motherhood could for some Afghan women, provide hope, a welcome distraction, and raison d’ệtre, during a time of otherwise significant disruption and uncertainty.