Paper short abstract:

My research analyse how migrant women make sense of their mothering role in the host country (north Italy). Results show that parenting is a propitious site of reconstruction of personal and familiar identity.

Paper long abstract:

With the movement to European Union of increasing numbers of migrants originating from outside Europe, 'migrant families' have become crucial for migration policies and public opinion. The notion of the family has become politicised as a trope, a site of expression of diverse moral orders, set of beliefs and values, ideas and practices by reference to which migrant groups are identified. In many Western societies, public discourse typically represents immigrant families as 'problematic,' their cultural practices reckoned unacceptable for pragmatic or ideological reasons. Beyond this external perspective exists the real practices enacted in diverse sectors of family life (parenting, in our specific case) which show a more complex and multi-faced situation, one of hybridation of knowledge and practices. The domestic sphere depicts migrant families at a crucial point of interface with host country services through pregnancy and early childhood needs. My research focuses on migrant families and their social inclusion in Trentino (a region of north Italy) through the analysis of parenting practices. Results illustrate that the family stage is a site both of reconstruction and of reinvention of identity of an identity especially projected onto the children.