Paper short abstract:

This article focuses on the experience of 'second generation' mothers of African origin in Italy and shows how their struggles for the future of children and their educational choices are part of a personal way of 'navigating' citizenship and counteracting racial hierarchies.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to explore the intersection and the overlap of mothering practices and acts of affective citizenship, focusing on the maternal trajectories of Italian women of African descent. By approaching motherhood as biosocial threshold, on which both subjective and collective tensions and negotiations reverberate, this contribution aims to analyse how feelings of belonging, claims and practices of citizenship may evolve and/or emerge while being and/or becoming a black mother in Italy. Drawing on a research conducted with second-generation mothers whose families came from West African countries, this paper will highlight the connection between mother’s hopes, struggles and emotions related to children’s future and their navigation of citizenship in a national context permeated by racially based social boundaries. Inspired by feminist literature on black mothering, the contribution pushes for more attention to diversities and specificities of mothering practices and of affective citizenship acts resulting by racial and class variations. On the one hand, mothers protect children from discrimination in everyday life by counteracting institutional differentiation practices; on the other hand, they adopt specific educational styles to make children aware of the social and emotional implications of skin colour and cultural background in their social experiences. Therefore, by cultivating children's self-esteem and self-awareness as Italian citizens, mothers aim to teach them how to be resilient to the hegemonic idea of a colour-blind nation, while supporting their social inclusion and expanding their space of citizenship.