The emotional journey of motherhood in migration. The case of Southern European mothers in Norway

Based on focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with Greek, Italian, and Spanish mothers living in Norway, this article contributes to an emerging body of literature on the role of emotions in migration by exploring migrant motherhood as an emotional journey. Drawing on the work of Arlie Hochschild on emotions and her theoretical concepts of framing rules, feeling rules, and emotion work, the article explores how migrant mothers reflect on their emotions when raising their children in the context of migration. Migrant mothers’ accounts illustrate the ambivalent and contradictory emotional experiences they have when they manage rules about how they should make sense of, and feel about their mothering in both host and origin countries. Emotions of guilt, blame, remorse, pride, satisfaction, confidence, and happiness shaped mothers’ experiences of motherhood and social interactions across countries. Through emotion work, migrant mothers managed interdependent emotions and related to different feeling rules establishing and maintaining relationships across places, and negotiating, in this way, their belonging to multiple contexts. Using an emotions-based sociological perspective, we look at motherhood as a field for studying the functions of emotions and their interactions in the context of migration.publishedVersio

CARING FUTURES: a study protocol for transdisciplinary qualitative research on technology-mediated care practices and theory development for ethics of care

Introduction The world’s population is ageing. As older persons live longer and increase in number, society faces a greater disease burden and, in public welfare, a corresponding resource deficit. New technology is one solution to this deficit but there is scarce knowledge about ethical aspects of such innovations in care practices. In CARING FUTURES, we address this scarcity by interrogating how new technology in care can become ethically sound and, correspondingly, how ethics of care can become more technology aware. Our concern is to protect quality care for the future. Methods and analysis CARING FUTURES advances transdisciplinarity through knowledge exchange around technology-mediated care and ethics of care, involving key stakeholders. We rely on established and innovative methods to generate experience-near and practice-near knowledge. Through this empirical research, we seek to expand understanding of technology-mediated care and to enrich ethics of care theory. Ethics and dissemination Empirical studies have been approved or await approval by national ethics committees. CARING FUTURES is designed to create societal impact through Knowledge Transfer Events targeting stakeholders in health, care and welfare, and Educational Packages for students of care—providing knowledge-exchange forums for future academics and practitioners of care. The project’s societal impact is also ensured in that participating researchers are also practitioners and/or educators of care personnel for the future. Project findings will be disseminated through scientific publications and conference presentations. Through communication in both traditional and digital media platforms, we engage in dialogues between researchers, user groups, policy makers and the wider public.publishedVersio

Seksualitet som legitim faktor i vurdering av mors omsorgsevne

Artikkelen analyserer en ankedoms-prosess i Lagmannsretten fra begynnelsen av 2000-tallet hvor foreldrene var fratatt omsorgsretten, og hvor mors seksualitet og kognitive evner ble tillagt stor vekt i vurderingene av hennes omsorgsevner. Det empiriske grunnlaget for analysen er feltarbeid med observasjon av saksprosessen i retten og nærlesing av doms-dokumentet i etterkant av saken. Det teoretiske perspektivet er sosiologisk med inspirasjon fra diskursteori og studier innen etnometodologi. Jeg har særlig vært opptatt av hvordan en diskurs om kjønn, moderskap og seksualitet i en bestemt klasset kontekst, blir dominerende i rettens argumentasjon. Jeg diskuterer hvordan diskursen om morsskyld er knyttet til klasse og det en kan kalle psyko-legalisme hvor psykologisk kunnskap og egenskapsforståelse dominerer. Konklusjonen er at retten kan sees å være preget av en vedvarende mors-skyld- diskurs hvor det er legitimt å trekke inn mors seksualitet i vurderingsgrunnlaget for beslutning om omsorgsovertakelse.acceptedVersio

Norwegian PhD students' discourses about practice-relevant research in the field of health and social work

Aim The aim of this study was to explore the discourses of PhD students concerning the performance of practice‐relevant research in health and social work. Design An explorative, qualitative design and a discourse analytical approach were used to collect data. Methods Participants were recruited from a national research school for practice‐relevant research in Norway. Group interviews with ten PhD students (five health and five social work professionals) with extensive, wide‐ranging work experience as practitioners were used to collect data. The data were analysed by discourse analysis. Results The analysis revealed three discourses: (a) the professional knowledge discourse; (b) the promoting partnership discourse; and (c) the using research knowledge discourse. The discourses are explicit concerning how systematically formed practice‐relevant research in health and social work is linked to dominant discourses about knowledge in the scientific field. Professional knowledge, promoting partnership and using research knowledge are fundamental features of practice‐relevant research

The emotional journey of motherhood in migration. The case of Southern European mothers in Norway

Based on focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with Greek, Italian, and Spanish mothers living in Norway, this article contributes to an emerging body of literature on the role of emotions in migration by exploring migrant motherhood as an emotional journey. Drawing on the work of Arlie Hochschild on emotions and her theoretical concepts of framing rules, feeling rules, and emotion work, the article explores how migrant mothers reflect on their emotions when raising their children in the context of migration. Migrant mothers’ accounts illustrate the ambivalent and contradictory emotional experiences they have when they manage rules about how they should make sense of, and feel about their mothering in both host and origin countries. Emotions of guilt, blame, remorse, pride, satisfaction, confidence, and happiness shaped mothers’ experiences of motherhood and social interactions across countries. Through emotion work, migrant mothers managed interdependent emotions and related to different feeling rules establishing and maintaining relationships across places, and negotiating, in this way, their belonging to multiple contexts. Using an emotions-based sociological perspective, we look at motherhood as a field for studying the functions of emotions and their interactions in the context of migration