Forced Migrants, Active Mothers or Desired Wives: Migratory Motivation and Self-Representation in Kosovo Albanian and Russian Women's Biographies

Abstract

All forms of migration have fundamental repercussions in terms of family networks and obligations. This article investigates how women of refugee and migrant background view their deliberative capacities in making choices and how this combines with their self-representation as mothers, daughters and wives. What are the fundamental motivations immigrant women represent as legitimate explanations for their migrancy, in their own eyes and in the eyes of the receiving society? The material consists of biographic interviews carried out in 2006 with Kosovo Albanian and Russian women who have settled in Finland. Kosovo Albanian refugee women prefer to explain their migratory motivation as a result of their role as dedicated mothers rather than as people forced to flee. In turn, many female immigrants of Russian background have adopted a tendency to represent themselves as ‘passive migrants’ pushed by others' actions to leave Russia. This study shows that the ways in which immigrant women understand their womanhood and initiative in the migratory process not only reflect the socio-cultural characteristics of the sending society they have been socialised in, but also the available migratory channels and attitudes towards them in the receiving society.