The Challenge to the Concept of Transnational Motherhood in Migration Studies from Radical Feminist Perspectives

In the last thirty years, and owing to the extent of global women’s migration, academic research has concentrated on migrant mothers and their motherhood experiences in the transnational context. It is claimed that an academic consideration of the specific mothering experience of migrant women is missing in the feminist discipline. In order to address this, a new transnational feminist perspective is suggested on migration studies, reconceptualising motherhood. This paper analyses the historical background to the concept of motherhood and progress made therein from feminist perspectives. A response to the question of whether the radical feminist perspectives, which have shown much interest in the motherhood concept, are able to challenge today’s transnational motherhood, is considered by examining the critiques of both these radical and transnational feminist perspectives towards each other.