Introduction. Motherhood, migration, temporalities, representations, balances

Abstract

This special focus aims at contributing to the debate on the intersection of motherhood and migration by analysing the ways in which migration and reproductive and parenting practices influence each other. This introduction revisits this debate and focuses on two aspects that connect the articles of this collection, namely temporality and representations by and about women. Temporality is here understood as an analytical lens for observing processes and changes and as a socially shaped dimension that women experience, negotiate and enact. Reflecting on representation by and about migrant women allow to grasp reproduction as an arena of power relations between institutions, social groups and subjects. These two aspects, it is argued, allow to shed light on the transformations that invest reproductive choices and mothering practices along migratory trajectories vis-à-vis changing times and contexts, and on the balances – precarious and contingent – between different aspects of life.