(Ir)responsible mothers? Cape Verdeans and Portuguese social care

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to examine encounters between Cape Verdean student mothers and Portuguese professionals in the social care sector, and look at what kinds of care relations were established and whether culture is a significant factor.Design/methodology/approachThe approach was participant observation in appointments, the dynamics of which were examined within a broader analysis of the workings of “authoritative knowledge” and how this interlocks with “cultural authority”.FindingsThe workings of “authoritative knowledge” obscured the influences of the professionals' own culture upon the care provided. The women were thus treated as “problems” in need of “solutions”, in order to conform to normative models of responsible citizens and mothers. By treating issues of birth control and good parenting in isolation from the women's cultural contexts, professionals' attempts to regulate and correct women's behaviour was potentially alienating.Research limitations/implicationsFuture research should focus in more detail on how strategies that aim to raise awareness of and accommodate cultural differences can be institutionalized in such a way that they are not dismissed as yet another demand upon overburdened professionals. One of the main limitations of the research was that health professionals were not interviewed.Originality/valueThe article provides original ethnographic data which help to further the debate on intercultural competency for care providers.

Migration and parenting: reviewing the debate and calling for future research

“…Migrant parents are a special target for normative attitudes, but few studies have analyzed the implications of these attitudes on migrant parents' life, practices and perceptions. Although there are a few notable exceptions (see Jayasane-Darr, 2013;Jiménez Sedano, 2013;Challinor, 2012), social scientific studies on current "intensive parenting" have privileged white and Western parents as object of study. Instead, migrants' parenting, intended as a matter of social security and community health, has mainly been the domain of psychologists and biomedical practitioners.…”

Culture, ambivalence, and schismogenesis: Mothering double binds and gendered identities within Cape Verdean and Indian migrant families (Portugal)

“…Understandably, they become anxious about being seen as ''bad mothers'' (Akesson et al, 2012) by their own communities and child welfare programs. Further, their encounters with the Portuguese health services, whose dominant biomedical model ignores cultural differences, often increase their anxieties with regard to motherhood (Challinor, 2012). Fearing that their children might be taken away from them because they are jobless and their mothering practices do not fit the maternal carework model valued by paediatric services, some of our respondents tend to only seek social welfare and health programs when they reach severe stages of material deprivation and disease which subsequently increase the probability of losing the guard of their children.…”

Caught Between Changing Tides: Gender and Kinship in Cape Verde

“…The main focus in my research in Cape Verde has been on local development associations in the island of Santiago. In Portugal, the focus of my research shifted to women's and men's experiences of unplanned student pregnancies and how this affected their family and social relations and their sense of identity which included an examination of student mothers' encounters with Portuguese professionals in the social care sector (Challinor 2011(Challinor , 2012b(Challinor , 2012c. The fieldwork took place in the city of Porto (April 2008-December 2010 and in a smaller northern town called Âncora (June -December 2012).…”