Migrant mothers, human capital and citizenship hidden care Isabel Dyck School of Geography Queen Mary, University of London

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1 Migrant mothers, human capital and citizenship hidden care Isabel Dyck School of Geography Queen Mary, University of London Copyright Isabel Dyck 2013 Introduction: This paper is based on a set of studies in Vancouver, Canada, concerned with various aspects of settlement for migrants from different sending or source countries and living in different types of Vancouver neighbourhoods each with different demographic profiles. These studies were part of a SSHRC- government collaboration which took the form of The Metropolis Project, which funded five Centres of Excellence in Research on Issues of Integration in the Metropolis across Canada. The umbrella problematic of this research was that of integration economic, social, political in the context of Canadian immigration patterns and policies where mainly European based immigration had been replaced with the majority of immigrants coming from other parts of the world, in Vancouver notably from the Pacific Rim and the sub- continent of India. The intent was that this large body of studies would inform future policy directions. The studies I m referring to today were collaborative studies involving a geographer (myself) and colleagues from sociology and anthropology, Professor Gillian Creese, University of British Columbia, Professor Arlene McLaren, Simon Fraser University, and Dr. Parin Dossa, also of Simon Fraser University. Between them, these studies looked specifically at: 1. How migrants found housing, found work, were involved in children s education, how they made friends and re- made home in two different, contrasting neighbourhoods one a lower income immigrant reception area close to the city centre and the other a family- orientated outer suburb with little ethnic clustering or difference - Here the focus of analysis was the household, although we also conducted a study specifically with mothers and daughters 2. Health conceptions of health, health care practices and access to health care particularly in relation to re- making home. - Here the focus was on mothers Page 1

2 As a research team we ve written a number of articles on the themes and issues emerging from the research which take up either directly or indirectly how immigration status and place shape families experiences and settlement strategies. What I want to do today is bring together insights from these constituent studies that tell something about the gendered nature of caring for the future. I argue that the quotidian activities of women as they re- make home and negotiate changing family relationships have broader implications for the making of new citizens, whose lives either in practice or through memories span transnational spaces. These are not highly visible actions of the public realm but the agency encompassed in the everyday activities of being- in- place. Background As a geographer a lens of place infuses these studies, place both in the sense of materialities and the sets of social relations that intertwine with the physicality of place, both of which are in dynamic relationship and experience shifts over time. I m interested in how migrant mothers everyday practices in homes and neighbourhoods are integral to multi- scalar place- making, simultaneously active in constructing spaces where the subjectivities of new citizens are formed. Specifically these are the spaces of homes, immigrant support services, and neighbourhood spaces where social and cultural capital, fundamental to pathways to integration as I discuss in the paper, may be generated. It is activity within these (migrant) spaces that ultimately link up with a sense of belonging to and contribution to Canada as a nation state. These latter may or may not overlap with formal citizenship status (all participants were a mix of permanent residents, citizens or refugees) but they are tightly bound to a notion of integration which, while not well delineated, acts as a quasi marker of a good citizen. However, increasingly scholarship recognises the conceptual and empirically backed notion of flexible citizenship, which recognises cross- border loyalties and alignments. Constituent Studies: Participants from a range of source countries were included in the studies. Five year Longitudinal Studies: Tri- Cities: Participants from Poland, Hong Kong, Korea, Iran, Brazil and the former Yugoslavia East Vancouver: Bolivia, El Salvador, Hong Kong, India, Peru, the Philippines, Somalia, Uganda and Vietnam Page 2

3 Additional Studies: Mothers, teen- aged daughters and issues of feminine identity: China, Hong Kong, Finland, Iran, Korea and Taiwan Health studies focusing on women and homes: India and Afghanistan Focus groups and in- depth interviews were used variously in the studies. In all the studies we were interested in how gender played out in settlement processes and strategies, but found that generation and gender dynamics intertwined in settlement processes and following from this the making of new citizens. However, it needs to be noted that the activities of mothers cannot be taken out of the context of family and household strategies post- migration; so while we can focus on mothers we must see them embedded within fluid family relationships as the household operates and changes as a unit operationalizing economic and social strategies. Themes from the studies: Despite the range of source countries and citizen statuses (permanent residents, citizens, refugees) and different focii of the studies common themes were clear: The resilience and efforts of families as they struggle to make a place for themselves in Canadian society (materially and metaphorically, in a sense of belonging) l common struggles in gaining employment, getting to know Canadian families and experiencing isolation (particularly the women) l new dependencies, challenges to understanding masculinity and femininity and changed relationships between generations l negotiations of localities as combinations of physical structures, resources, social relations and spaces coded with meanings of appropriate behaviour/belonging Note: case studies not intended to be representative but provide an entry point into processes that in analysis need to be contextually located in power relations and local contingencies. Thinking about Resilience Despite stories of struggles and disappointment the women of the study cannot be seen as passive receivers of the conditions in which they found themselves. Like Hunt (2008) we observed women s creative agency through primarily social practices despite barriers within host environments. I will provide some examples, but first I want to clarify the notion of resilience that was so prominent in our observations: Page 3

4 The term resilience has been applied to people s abilities to cope and respond to challenging situations, with the resilience of migrants being studied from different disciplinary perspectives. Examination of resilience has emphasised its location within everyday management of adversity and its close association with family and community involvement.ve highlighted its social characterisation and its imbrication with family, community and culture (Lyons, Mickelson et al. 1998, Ungar 2008: 225). Cindi Katz (2004) has suggesting four components to the different dimensions of resilience, often conflated with resistance: 1. acts of resilience which constitute coping mechanisms which facilitate the continuation of life 2. acts that rework inequalities whilst operating within available structures; third, 3. acts which demonstrate an oppositional consciousness to the extent that they qualify as resistance 4. acts which have revolutionary possibility. We can see the women s quotidian activities in our research within this framework, in both the senses of coping with adversity and re- working inequalities within available structures. But how does this related to the making of new citizens? Here I turn to work we have done using and extending Bordieu s notion of capital. Here we can trace ways in which resilience goes beyond everyday coping to an active re- working of one s difference in society with effects that help one s children, and to some extent, oneself to become integrated into Canadian society the passage into Canadian- ness. It is important to note that the transformation of capitals occur in the mundane activity of everyday life as women carry out caring responsibilities related to their family as a whole husbands and children so this is highly gendered activity. Capitals in social reproduction Bordieu s work was largely concerned with social class and inherent distinctions but we have found his framework can be usefully extended to incorporate the axes of difference that underpin all social life, with our particular concern lying with gender and those marked as immigrant. Bordieu identified three types of capitals in his theory of social reproduction: economic (forms of wealth), social (social networks) and cultural (modes of thinking, dispositions, tastes which would also include education). In addition symbolic capital adds further to dimension to these, referring to personal qualities such Page 4

5 as charisma and authority. What is important to note in Bordieu s theory is that these forms of capital are relational, interacting together and indeed are instrumental in transforming each other. Adding emotional capital To these, following Allatt (1993) and Nowotny cited in Reay (2004) - we add emotional capital, encapsulated in the myriad forms of caring that women do whether in supporting their children s education, supporting their husbands and variously sustaining relationships. Drawing from Allatt, Reay describes emotional capital in terms of emotionally valued assets and skills, love and affection, expenditure of time, attention, care and concern. Emotional capital has a strong gender dimension with women typically engaging in emotional labour of various kinds and holding the emotional capital with which to do this labour. Everyday care work is involved in creating both physical bodies (providing food, bodily care of children) and the subjectivities (involving cultural capital) of new citizens, which I will come to. However, rather than solely domestically orientated qualities such emotional capital can be seen as the glue holding together and/or facilitating the development of other forms of capital and their transformations, including transformation into the all important economic capital. We have numerous examples of this as women go about their everyday lives in the context of their households and communities, from our research, ranging from the supporting of a husband in re- skilling for the labour market through engaging with schools in support of children s education to the encouragement of developing the literal taste of Canada in the sense of knowing about and eating Canadian food. Becoming Canadian Generating cultural capital - re- making home and health - supporting children s education è anticipated future opportunities to transform cultural capital into social and economic capital e.g.s Sikh women coming from rural Punjab to Canada as dependents living in areas with clusterings of Punjabi households with much of their day- to- day activity conducted with other Sikhs and areas with physical markings of migrant spaces, such as Gudwara and a density of shops selling India products and Page 5

6 produce. These family- class immigrants, with low educational levels and limited engagement with public life, work hard to bring up children in ways that preserves knowledge of and attachment to a distant India most children have not seen while simultaneously equipping them to be Canadian citizens with the cultural knowledge and practices the women saw as important to being Canadian. Food was a primary example of this; being healthy was equated with healthy food for the body AND as part of being culturally competent. So that while the women cooked Indian recipes from scratch, treats - for example as a reward for school work - would include going out to eat what was described as Canadian food, such as pizza or burgers. As much scholarship notes, ingesting food is also ingesting culture, exemplified here in one woman s comment that although her two year old didn t like McDonalds food she made him eat it, as he needed to fit into Canadian culture as a future citizen. Other women, especially those who were more highly educated, invested considerably in their children s education. One woman for example, made an effort to go to her daughter s school to meet teachers, take part in parents activities and support her daughter in doing her homework. Although she had no previous knowledge of Canadian schools, she learned what the expectations for her daughter and her as a parent, were. In this way, participating in the educational system was not simply gaining high school credentials but also knowledge of how to go on as a Canadian in this setting. Both these examples indicate the generation of cultural capital which parents saw as essential in being an appropriate Canadian subject. Teen- aged daughters also were concerned with cultural capital, but rather than educational attainment they were more concerned with fitting in with a group, through mode of dress, deportment and such like. I would like to point out that the resilience of women as they negotiate the localities where they live, involves both the interpretation of coded spaces such as those of the school where certain expectations are played out e.g. how to be a parent and potentially destabilising their meanings (good parents can be immigrants of colour). That is, in reading these spaces they are learning cultural cues and negotiating their difference against a normative Canadianness coded white. Page 6

7 Economic integration - devalued capitals, generating and transforming capitals - household strategies in re- skilling and attempts to find good jobs emotional capital in action While the above examples relate to cultural capital specifically, encompassing resilience as everyday social practice in dealing with adversity or coping with the challenges of settling, I want to go on now to an example (one of several) of women s emotional capital as crucial to household strategies as family households manage now devalued capitals from their life before coming to Canada and the need to generate and transform new capital. Here I refer to women accompanying their husbands i.e. the husband is the primary applicant who has entered Canada through the points system; an educated, skilled migrant who is considered to have the human capital to make him or her, more usually him, a flexible citizen able to contribute to the economy. Here we have Mania, an English teacher from Iran married to an engineer and with two children, a teen- aged daughter and a younger son. Her husband was not able to translate his engineering qualification into the Canadian labour market, and found work (through other Iranians in a similar situation) at a petrol/gas station, so losing symbolic capital as well as his cultural capital (his qualification) being devalued. Mania was also unable to translate her teaching qualification into the labour market as she had no documentary evidence with her. The energies of the family acting as a unit, not individuals were diverted into finding work and possibilities of re- skilling for her husband. However, with their economic capital depleted through the immigration process, including setting up a household, and without work, there was no opportunity for either of them to re- train. Mania s husband did learn to use an Autocad computer programme, allied to engineering, but it was not until the fifth year of the study that he had been able to get a better job with some relationship to his engineering qualifications. Throughout this time he was discouraged and while happy for the children s achievements at school, compared his downward fortunes with their positive futures. Throughout this time, Mania, with her own possible goals on hold, supported the various family members, deploying her emotional capital in encouraging her husband, supporting her children in their studies for example going to the library with her daughter after school and also doing volunteer work at an immigrant services ngo. At the latter she did gain important Canadian experience and developed skills that eventually led to a position there transforming the cultural capital she generated and the social capital too, Page 7

8 through the social networks she formed, into economic capital. Her children also were en route to potential economic and social integration in Canada. While her husband was not able to regain the capitals he had before, it was through the underpinning of Mania s emotional capital that he was eventually able to gain a better foothold in the labour market and generate economic capital in the context of household. There are other examples of different variations of capital generation and transformation in our research, showing the complexity of their interweaving and, in common, the critical importance of women s emotional capital in the attendant processes. In conclusion While women s emotional capital underpins a household s resilience, as its family members cope with fitting into Canada - the interviews also showed that the women tended to be caught in situations of isolation and learning from their children, with the cultural capital brought with them from another country having to be re- evaluated and sometimes found wanting. In the interviews women consistently identified themselves as willing citizens but precluded from full/desired participation in society due to difficulties in finding work to support a family and, in some cases, to perceived racist attitudes, whatever the immigration category the women entered Canada (this highlighted within the context of an economic downturn). But the women s agency was signalled in all the interviews and a clear message that they wanted to convey in our interviews with them was themselves as hard- working women, with the family as their core concern around which they make personal sacrifices, actively supporting husbands and children to make their way in Canada. They presented themselves as potential good citizens but often precluded from making a full contribution to society, particularly in terms of gaining employment. It was evident however, that through their emotional capital, they supported husbands and children in their attainment of integration primarily through gaining good jobs, if necessary re- skilling, in the case of the husbands and in the case of the children supporting them at school and making attempts to ensure that they can fit in through acquiring appropriate cultural capital which then provided avenues to social and then economic capital. While there may be differences in how children and mothers interpret cultural capital educational achievement versus being and looking cool there is consensus in their ultimate goal of becoming Canadian. Page 8

9 As women, in the context of their family, strive to provide support to their family members, often to the detriment of their own advancement in society they expend considerable emotional capital, represented in a myriad of care and care- related work in homes and neighbourhoods. Such hidden care is the glue of family households and the achievements of family members, yet continues to fall outside understandings of the human capital so sought after in a nation state as it continues to build and reproduce itself. The women remain invisible, their care seen as confined to the domestic sphere with little recognition of the centrality of their emotional capital to the eventual actualisation of the human capital seen in policy terms as confined to the primary applicant at the point of immigration. Page 9