Subjectivities of highly skilled lead, tied, and equal migrant mothers

Abstract

Professionally mobile individuals tend to migrate for career purposes at the prime age of reproduction. This article focuses on highly skilled migrant mothers from different cultural backgrounds living and working in Geneva. The article argues that they inhabit and internalize their identities as―lead, tied, and/or equal―migrants and this impacts ways in which they come to develop their professional and maternal subjectivities. Highly skilled migrant mothers who identified with their tied migrant status developed a neoliberal professional and maternal subjectivity, whereas those who had internalized the lead or equal migrant ideal subjectivities developed liberal feminist professional and maternal selves. The typology of postfeminist/neoliberal versus liberal feminist migrant mothers' subjectivities helps us to better understand the feminist potentials for migration of highly skilled mothers.