Private empowerment and public isolation: power in the stories of migrant ‘Mother-Poles’

Abstract

ABSTRACTWhile the lives of migrant women are predominantly portrayed as inherently problematic, limited attention has been given to their experiences of empowerment and disempowerment. The maternal power framework is used in this article to study Polish migrant mothers and their children. Bringing together two studies to showcase an intergenerational perspective of the realms of migrant motherhood, the authors present evidence from (1) the stories of women representing a ‘Mother-Pole’ parenting (an iconically Polish self-sacrificing practice of subjecting women’s needs to those of her family), and (2) the data collected through interviewing adult children of Polish migrant mothers. The findings indicate a twofold conceptualization of power, challenging the universal ascription of ‘powerlessness’ characteristic to motherhood, yet contending that Mother-Poles are prone to marginalization. Ultimately, the article comments on the possibility of transformative maternal power among the Poles abroad and contributes to the current debates on the intersection of gender, ethnicity and power.