The “Messy Middle”: Serial Migrant Mothers and Permanent Temporariness in Dubai

Keywords: Serial Migration, Motherhood, Permanent Temporariness, Propagating Roots, Reflexive Selving, Messy Middle, Global South
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 13

Abstract

Based on a five-year urban ethnography, this article explores the subjectivities of permanent temporariness that characterize the experience of serial migrant mothers in Dubai. By going beyond ethnographic approaches that select middle class participants based on category classifications such as ethnicity, race, or citizenship, this paper uses a processual lens and sheds light on a sociologically unmarked category of migrants in the city whose experiences of mothering and work are embedded in trajectories of serial migration. Through detailed biographies of four serial migrants, this paper offers an illustration of the subjectivities of permanent temporariness and shows how they are reproduced through three mothering practices: propagating roots, reflexive selving, and normalizing movement. Examining the “messy middle” allows us to understand how the flow and friction of multinational migration can get reconstituted into family and work lives.