A research project submitted to the African Centre for Migration and Society in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Migration and Displacement
March 2016 / Migration patterns in Zimbabwe and the Southern African region have historically been male
led and dominated. Recently, however, there has been an increase in the participation of
women in migration in search of improved work and education opportunities. This
feminisation of migration has implications on normative understandings of motherhood,
family and gender roles. In particular, it may necessitate renegotiation of family roles: fathers
and other relatives may be tasked to take care of and nurture the children, whilst mothers
find alternative ways to mother from afar, suggesting changes in mothers’ productive and
reproductive roles. Against this backdrop, the study explores mothering experiences of
Zimbabwean women living in Johannesburg who left their children in Zimbabwe, or who have
had children in Johannesburg and then moved them to Zimbabwe. Participants’ perceptions
about motherhood, the challenges they face and the ways they try to overcome them are
examined. Special focus is on single mothers who are employed in the low skills labour market
for two reasons: first their mothering role gains particular importance in light of the absence
of the father to help with parenting. Second, given the nature of their employment, they tend
to face resource constraints which do not permit full-time mothering. The study draws from
literature on transnational motherhood and transnational families and in-depth semi
structured interviews with eleven Zimbabwean mothers living and working in Johannesburg.
Constructivist grounded theory was used to analyse the data. As a mother who travelled alone
to study in Johannesburg and who has a child in Zimbabwe, I am reflective of my position
throughout the research process. Findings indicate that while mothers displayed agency in
their conceptualisations of motherhood in the context of migration, they nonetheless viewed
the ideology of intensive motherhood, which portrays mothers as selfless and fully dedicating
their time to taking care of children at home, as an ideal form of mothering. This created
challenges for them as they viewed themselves as not adequately exercising their mothering
role and subsequently falling short of being ‘good mothers’ despite the important role they
play as significant contributors to the household income in Zimbabwe. / MT2017
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/22237 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Zikhali, Thulisile |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resources (79 leaves), application/pdf, application/pdf |
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