Other Mothers: Encountering In/Visible Femininities in Migration and Urban Contexts

Abstract

Whereas much has been written about migrants’ visibility, the multiple and complex layers of migrants’ invisibility invite further exploration. Migrants’ in/visibility is not clear-cut: it differs across various locations and, as such, demands a comparative, intersectional analysis. This paper seeks to explore it by investigating how recent migrants make sense of their own appearance, as well as those of others they encounter in their new places of residence. Specifically, I inquire into the notion of femininity as it is performed and perceived by Polish migrant mothers living in German and British cities. I discuss whose performances of femininity are visible and whose femininity is rendered invisible in the eyes of my research participants, and what implications this may carry for urban and migration research. Strikingly, the women I interviewed only seem to recognise white British and German women's performances of femininity for what they are. Non-white and Muslim femininities remain, at best, invisible or, in the not infrequent cases of racism and Islamophobia, are stripped not only of their unique gendered features, but of humanity altogether. As seemingly peaceful interactions in urban space do not exclude privately harboured racial, ethnic, religious and class prejudice, a feminist revision of encounters with diversity provides valuable insight into the structure of such metropolitan paradoxes, yielding new understandings of how racism, classism and sexism persist alongside ostensibly inclusive urban cultures.

Understanding Migrant Masculinities through a Spatially Intersectional Lens

“…Lisiak made similar observations (2017) in respect to Polish migrant women in the UK and Germany. They also construct their motherhood and feminity in relation to white British or Germans but neglect non-White and immigrant women.…”

Where Difference Begins

“…As Wojnicka and Nowicka (2021) and Lisiak (2017) explicate, Polish migrants in England and in Germany do not hesitate to demonstrate dismissive and discriminatory opinions of Muslim men and women as the racialisation and stigmatisation of Muslim bodies is largely legitimised in public discourses in these countries, as well as in Poland, which remains an important point of reference for these migrants. For Polish women in England and Germany, depicted by Lisiak (2017), white female bodies are visible, as they are also valuable, while non-white and Muslim bodies are invisible and misrecognised. What is also invisible, in the sense of not being addressed consciously, is the bodies' whiteness (Ahmed 2007), for whiteness is the norm in these countries.…”