Gender, spatiality and motherhood: intergenerational change in Greek-Cypriot migrant families in the UK

Abstract

There is growing interest in geography in the intersections of age, family and the lifecourse with migration. This paper furthers this work by focusing on the themes of intergenerational relationships and transmission within migrant families that have three generations. Using a case study of Greek-Cypriot families living in the UK, specifically the paper explores the experiences of second-generation and third-generation women, as young adults and as mothers, within the context of their relationships with their family members who were born outside of the UK. The gendered networks of power within Greek-Cypriot intergenerational migrant families are examined, with a particular focus on how these impact young women's everyday spatialities and influence their own experiences and practices of motherhood. The paper shows how difference is brought about, played out, contested and accepted between women. Through examining changing ideas of gender and motherhood, we reveal how these differences are negotiated by different generations of women.

Learning to be (multi)national: Greek diasporic childhood re-memories of nationalism and nation-building in Australia

“…(Yiorgos 2nd generation male, Canberra, age 40-50) Such feelings around the importance of shared language, culture, religion and traditions are seen by some in diaspora as crucial elements re-membered as critical for creating a sense of a diasporic Greek subjectivity. Re-memories of this past togetherness and the shared consciousness is created in multiple ways including: family and homeland relationships (King, Christou, and Teerling 2011); language (Mavroudi 2020); Greek school (Arvanitis 2014); food (Duruz 2010); dances, festivals and social and religious events (Avgoulas and Fanany 2015;Kallis, Yarwood, and Tyrrell 2020), which also help to forge subjectivities as both Greek and Australian (Naficy 1991). Our participants remembered these sites and practices of childhood as essential to forming a sense of Greek identity in Australia.…”