Renegotiating motherhood in transnational migration: maternal trajectories and intergenerational projections

Abstract

This article investigates migrant motherhood as a situated and transformative social practice through a qualitative narrative analysis of nine life stories of migrant women living in Italy and originating from Albania, Angola, Bangladesh, Brazil, Eritrea, Morocco and Peru. Drawing on the perspectives of transnational motherhood, intersectionality and female agency, the study explores how motherhood becomes a space of identity renegotiation, care reconfiguration and intergenerational projection within migratory trajectories shaped by structural inequalities, precariousness and cultural transformation. The research is based on biographical narrative interviews conducted between 2021 and 2023 and analysed through thematic coding using NVivo software. The findings highlight four interconnected dimensions: the management of long-distance family ties; the selective transmission of values and educational models; motherhood as a driver of mobility and resilience; and the biographical rewriting of selfhood in contexts marked by racialization and social discontinuity. The article conceptualizes migrant motherhood as a reflective and relational practice through which women renegotiate care, belonging and future aspirations across transnational contexts. To interpret these dynamics, the concepts of maternal trajectories and intergenerational projections are introduced as empirically grounded analytical categories.