Foreclosed futures and entangled timelines: conceptualization of the ‘future’ among Syrian newcomer mothers in Canada

Abstract

ABSTRACT Scholars have focused significant attention on geographic aspects of forced migration, as well as the economic, psychological, and cognitive outcomes of refugees’ movement across space. Less attention has been paid to temporal aspects of forced migration, particularly after refugees’ resettlement in a host society. Using semi-structured interviews with 41 Syrian mothers who recently arrived in Canada, I contribute to building theory on temporal dimensions of forced migration through an analysis of how refugee mothers conceptualise both their children’s and their own futures. First, I show how mothers’ perceptions of the future are heavily shaped by cultural and religious orientations of divine control, which may be out of sync with norms in their host society. I also identify two patterns demonstrating how space and time intersect. Displaced mothers deliberately ‘foreclose’ their own timeline in order to focus on their children’s future in Canada, feeling like their ‘selves’ could only grow in the former geographic space. Moreover, mothers do not separate their future projections from the present in Canada or from the past in Syria, leading to ‘entangled timelines.’ These findings suggest that scholarship on forced migration may continue to benefit from attention to how time and temporal experiences shape outcomes.