Migrant Women in Belgium: Identity Versus Feminism

‘When Mom left for Mars’: Life narratives of first-generation Moroccan migrant mothers in Flanders

“…In Belgium, a similar regulation in 1965 actively mobilised families to reunite, and even provided reimbursement of half of the travel expenses for the spouse and children who were to accompany a worker, on the condition that the family had at least three children under the legal age of majority (Martiniello and Rea, 2003). In the Walloon region of Belgium, migrant workers were thus not only viewed as the answer to labour shortages in certain sectors, family reunification also demonstrated another objective – that of demographic recovery (Delperée and Nols in Ouali, 2012; Martiniello and Rea, 2003). Family reunification was also implemented since migrant women were considered to be vehicles for integration, enabling men’s acculturation in the new society (Martens, 1973).…”

‘When my children were born, I started to love Belgium’: Moroccan migrant mothers’ narratives of affective citizenship in the Belgian citizenisation context

“…Yet, migrants' 'proper' integration and 'good' citizenship become increasingly defined in more ideologically volatile terms. This progressionwhich in the local programme is centralised around the need to 'empower' migrant mothers (AGII 2019)is informed by the rise of specific gendered and culturalised discourses on socalled third-country migrants, which emphasise the need to 'save' women with a Muslim background (Ghanem 2019;Ghorashi 2010;Miri 2020;Ouali 2012).…”