Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Publication
    Working through a Recession
    (Translocations, 2011-11) ;
    This paper focuses on the experiences of migrants at work in Ireland during the ongoing recession. It draws on a broader longitudinal qualitative study of two recent migrant cohorts, and challenges dominant understandings of recent migration to Ireland as economic and temporary, showing instead the complex ways in which migrants experience and understand work in their new homes. A general discussion of migrants at work in Ireland is followed by an examination of the impact of neoliberalism on working lives. The impacts of the recession are then discussed in detail, with particular reference to (under)employment and the new limits to migrant mobility that have emerged. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the importance of this issue, both for understanding working lives and migrant lives.
      359
  • Publication
    Migrant mothers and the geographies of belonging
    (Taylor & Francis, 2016) ;
    Much academic research on migrant mothers focuses on mothers who are separated from their children, often through their integration into global care chains, or on mothers within the context of family migration. This paper argues that co-resident migrant mothers' experiences provide an important window on the complexities of the migration experience. Using a specific case study of Ireland, and drawing from a broader longitudinal research project that focuses on recent migrants, the paper explores migrant mothers’ understandings and experiences of belonging and not-belonging. We argue that structural obstacles and cultural understanding of care actively conspire to undermine migrant mothers' potential to develop place-belongingness. Interviewees' discussions of their status as full-time mothers were often framed through images of ideal motherhood, but equally highlighted how the absence of affordable childcare and family members isolated them and prevent them from creating a sense of belonging outside of the process of mothering and the home.
    Scopus© Citations 32  728
  • Publication
    Home stories: immigrant narratives of place and identity in contemporary Ireland
    (Taylor and Francis, 2015) ;
    This paper discusses immigrant identity and place in contemporary Ireland. It draws from a longitudinal research project that involved recent immigrants to Ireland. Participants in the project came from 18 different countries, and ranged in age from 22 to 68. Their reasons for moving to Ireland were varied, and included work, adventure and personal relationships. Combining insights from socio-linguistics and human geography, the paper first considers the different ways in which immigrants to Ireland narrate place and identity, paying particular attention to content and linguistic strategies. It then provides a more detailed discussion of the relationship between immigrant identity and place through a focus on the concept of 'home', highlighting the linguistic strategies and means that immigrants used to discursively construct notions of home and identity in their interviews. The paper concludes by arguing that detailed discourse level analysis of people’s narratives of place offers new insights into the relationship between immigrant identity and place.
      467