Caring Women and the Intimate Realities of Transnational Belonging

• Main Author: Henry, Caitlin R.
• Other Authors: Kepe, Thembela
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: Transnationalism; African diaspora; Home; Citizenship; Belonging; Care; 0366
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/25616

Transnational migrants challenge meanings of home, belonging, and citizenship because they exercise their right to mobility and form multiple allegiances abroad, all while negotiating different gender roles and new care deficits. In three parts, I explore the meanings of home and belonging for transnational women and seek to understand the gendered implications of their migration, especially how migrant women meet care needs and confront institutional exclusion. First, I explore how Global South women use transnational friendship networks to migrate and fill welfare-pitfalls in the US. Next, I argue that the concept of the ‘Third World Woman’ helps in understanding belonging and informal support networks both at work and in life. Finally, bringing citizenship, belonging, and care together through multiple meanings of home, I explore how multiple allegiances to multiple places form and how exclusion, inclusion, feelings of belonging, and citizenship shape transnational women’s experiences in and attachments to different places.