Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the role of social infrastructures in shaping the experiences of return migrant mothers in Mexico City and how these mothers navigate social, economic and familial transitions in a context of urban inequality, highlighting disparities in accessibility due to social class.

Paper long abstract:

In recent decades, migration between the United States and Mexico has undergone a major transformation. More Mexicans have returned from the US than have migrated there, with a particularly high proportion of female returnees in Mexico’s capital. Among them are many mothers from different social backgrounds who have returned to, with or without their children, either voluntarily or by force. Some of them settle in the wealthy western and central districts of the city, where most of the economic and cultural activity is concentrated. Others can only afford to rent in the eastern periphery, which is severely affected by poverty and where urban infrastructure and services are more precarious. While mothers from privileged socioeconomic backgrounds can usually fall back on pre-existing networks and nurturing environments, working-class mothers are often on their own and have to cope with a landscape of social, economic and psychological vulnerability. Given the lack of public assistance for this rather unusual migrant community, it is primarily returnee organisations that can provide spaces of social encounter and support systems for navigating economic and familial transitions. Based on one-year ethnographic fieldwork among return migrants in Mexico City, this paper explores how social infrastructures shape maternal perceptions of return, and of the place itself. By considering how (in)accessibility to these spaces is mediated by social class, it works towards a better understanding of the complex ways return migrant mothers orient themselves in contexts of social and spatial (im)mobility when reorganising their lives and those of their children.