Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Thinking with reproduction: Maternal time, citizenship, migration and political subjectivity

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Subjectivity Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article thinks with reproduction (what Baraitser and Tyler call ‘natal thinking’ (2013, p. 3)) to conceptualise its role as both an empirical and theoretically rich site through which to further develop thinking about citizenship as fluid (in flux). Focusing on the mother-child (born and unborn) subject, the article considers the manner in which thinking with the cyclical and eternal time of reproduction reconfigures the possibility of political community and political identity through the idea of repetition which undoes at the same time as it repeats. The article reflects upon how actions by migrant mothers undo (exceed) at the same time as they repeat understandings about the role of inclusion (commonality) versus exclusion (otherness) in citizenship. It argues that such acts can be seen as that which invoke excess and otherness in political subjectivity as another starting point for/of political possibility rather than just as an exception.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See, for example, some other approaches and discussions within the intersectionality literature, which specifically critique the idea of ‘axis’ of differentiation. These point instead to intermeshing forms of oppression, which are constitutive of subjects, thereby undermining the notion of the unitary subject more systematically (for example Erel et al, 2010).

  2. In most European countries, for example, all residents (of 6 months) are entitled to vote regardless of their status in municipal elections. In many countries asylum seekers are entitled to work after a period of time.

References

  • AkiDwa (2013) Evaluation report: Migrant women’s health service project. 6: pp. 1–26, http://www.akidwa.ie/publications/gender-based-violence/female-genital-mutilation.html.

  • Andrijasevic, R. (2009) Sex on the move: Gender, subjectivity and differential inclusion. Subjectivity 29 (1): 389–406.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Balibar, É. (2000) What we owe to the Sans-Papiers. In: L. Guenther and C. Heesters (eds.) Social Insecurity. Toronto: Anansi, pp. 42–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Balibar, É. (2012) The ‘impossible’ community of the citizens: Past and present problems. Society and Space 30 (3): 437–449.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baraitser, L. (2009) Mothers who make things public. Feminist Review 93: 8–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baraitser, L. (2012a) Maternal publics: Time, relationality and the public sphere. In: A. Gulerce (ed.) Re(con)figuring Psychoanalysis. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 221–240.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Baraitser, L. (2012b) Communality across time. Studies in Gender and Sexuality 13 (2): 117–122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baraitser, L. and Tyler, I. (2013) Private view, public birth: Making feminist sense of the new visual culture of childbirth. Studies in the Maternal 5 (2): online 1–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Battersby, C. (1998) The Phenomenal Woman: Feminist Metaphysics and the Patterns of Identity. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauböck, R. (2011) Temporary migrants, partial citizenship and hypermigration. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 14 (5): 661–693.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bhabha, J. (2009) ‘The mere fortuity of birth’? Children, mothers, borders and the meaning of citizenship. In: S. Benhabib and J. Resnik (eds.) Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders and Gender. New York: NY University Press, pp. 187–227.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bosniak, L. (2006) The Citizen and the Alien. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, J., Coll, K., Daginino, E. and Neveu, C. (2014) Disputing Citizenship. Bristol: Policy Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Closs Stephens, A. (2010) Citizenship without community: Time, design and the city. Citizenship Studies 14 (1): 31–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Closs Stephens, A. and Squire, V. (2012) Politics through a web: Citizenship and community unbound. Society and Space 30 (3): 551–567.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dauvergne, C. (2009) Globalizing fragmentation: New pressures on women caught in the immigration law-citizenship law dichotomy. In: J. Benhabib and J. Resnik (eds.) Migrations and Mobilities. London: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erel, U. (2009) Migrant Women Transforming Citizenship: Life Stories from Britain and Germany. London: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erel, U. (2013) Kurdish migrant mothers in London enacting citizenship. Citizenship Studies 17 (8): 970–984.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Erel, U., Haraitaworn, J., Gutiérrez-Rodrígiez, E. and Klesse, C. (2010) On the depoliticisation of intersectionality talk. In: K. Adi and M. Esperanza (eds.) Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality. New York: Raw Nerve Books, pp. 265–292.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garner, S. (2007) Babies, bodies and entitlement: Gendered aspects of access to citizenship in the Republic of Ireland. Parliamentary Affairs 60 (3): 437–452.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gedalof, I. (2009) Birth, belonging and migrant mothers: Narratives of reproduction in feminist migration studies. Feminist Review 93: 81–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanafin, M. (2004) Why we have to close citizenship loophole. The Irish Independent 19 May.

  • Honohan, I. (2007) Bounded citizenship and the meaning of citizenship laws. In: L. Cardinal and N. Brown (eds.) Managing Diversity: Practices of Citizenship in Australia, Canada and Ireland. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, pp. 63–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Howard, M. (2009) The Politics of Citizenship in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Government of Ireland (2012) Irish Constitution. Dublin: Stationary Office.

  • Irish Times (2014) Rally challenges citizenship restrictions. The Irish Times, 12 June.

  • Isin, E. (2002) Being Political: Genealogies of Citizenship. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isin, E. (2009) Citizenship in flux: The figure of the activist citizen. Subjectivity 29: 367–388.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Isin, E. and Neilson, G. (eds.) (2008) Acts of Citizenship. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jabri, V. (2009) Julia Kristeva. In: J. Edkins and N. Vaughan-Williams (eds.) Critical Theorists and International Relations. London: Routledge, pp. 221–234.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kristeva, J. (1981) Women’s time. Signs. Translated by A. Jardine and H. Blake 7 (1): 13–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kristeva, J. (1986a) A new type of intellectual: The dissident. In: T. Moi (ed.) The Kristeva Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 292–300.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kristeva, J. (1986b) About Chinese women. In: T. Moi (ed.) The Kristeva Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 138–159.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kristeva, J. (1991) Strangers to Ourselves. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lentin, R. (2004) Strangers and strollers: Feminist notes on researching migrant m/others. Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (4): 301–314.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lister, R. (2007) Inclusive citizenship, realising the potential. Citizenship Studies 11 (1): 49–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Luibhéid, E. (2004) Childbearing against the State? Asylum seeker women in the Irish Republic. Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (4): 335–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McNevin, A. (2011) Contesting Citizenship: Irregular Migration and New Frontiers of the Political. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mezzadra, S. (2011) The gaze of autonomy. In: V. Squire (ed.) The Contested Politics of Mobility: Borderzones and Irregularity. London: Routledge, pp. 121–142.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mezzadra, S. and Neilson, B. (2012) Between inclusion and exclusion: On the topology of global space and borders. Theory Culture and Society 29 (4–5): 58–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mezzadra, S. and Rahola, F. (2006) The postcolonial condition: A few notes on the quality of historical time in the global present. Postcolonial Text 2 (1) Online journal.

  • Mullally, S. (2005) Debating reproductive rights in Ireland. Human Rights Quarterly 27 (1): 78–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mullally, S. (2009) Migrant women destabilizing borders: Citizenship debates in Ireland. In: E. Grabham, D. Cooper, J. Krishnadas and D. Herman (eds.) Intersectionality and Beyond. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 251–270.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nancy, J.L. (2000) Being Singular Plural. California: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ngai, M. (2007) Birthright citizenship and the alien citizen. Fordham Law Review 75 (5): 2521–2530.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ní Mhurchú, A. (2014a) Citizenship beyond state sovereignty. In: E. Isin and P. Nyers (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 119–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ní Mhurchú, A. (2014b) Ambiguous Citizenship in an Age of Global Migration. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nyers, P. (2011) Forms of irregular citizenship. In: V. Squire (ed.) The Contested Politics of Mobility: Borderzones and Irregularity. London: Routledge, pp. 184–198.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oaks, L. (1998) Irishness, eurocitizens, and reproductive rights. In: S. Franklin and H. Ragone (eds.) Reproducing Reproduction: Kinship, Power, and Technological Innovation. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 132–155.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ong, A. (1999) Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oyewumi, O. (ed.) (2010) Introduction: Gendering. In: Gender Epistemologies in Africa. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–9.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raissiguier, C. (2010) Reinventing the Republic: Gender, Migration, and Citizenship in France. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, T. (2005) Caribbean Mothers: Identity and Experience in the UK. London: Tufnell Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rigo, E. (2011) Citizens despite borders: Challenges to the territorial order of Europe. In: V. Squire (ed.) The Contested Politics of Mobility: Borderzones and Irregularity. London: Routledge, pp. 199–215.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosaldo, R. (1994) Cultural citizenship in San Jose, California. PoLAR 17 (2): 57–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sarat, A. (2013) Who belongs? Immigration, citizenship and the constitution of legality, special issue. Studies in Law, Politics and Society 60: 1–111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sawyer, C. and Blitz, B.K. (2011) Statelessness in the European Union: Displaced, Undocumented, Unwanted. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Seely, J.C., Diouf, E.D., Malischewski, C.A., Viakath, M. and Young-Burns, K. (2013) Second-class citizens? Gender in African citizenship law. Citizenship Studies 17 (3): 429–446.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shachar, A. (2009) The Birthright Lottery. London: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shandy, D.J. (2008) Irish babies, African mothers: Rites of passage and rights in citizenship in post-millennia Ireland. Anthropological Quarterly 81 (4): 803–831.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, A. (2008) The Irish citizenship referendum (2004): Motherhood and belonging. In: D. Reed-Danahay and C.B. Brettell (eds.) Citizenship, Political Engagement, and Belonging. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, pp. 60–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, J. (ed.) (forthcoming 2016) Engendering the political: Citizenship from marginal spaces. Special issue on engendering citizenship. Citizenship Studies. Vol. 20, in press.

  • Vertovec, S. (2007) Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024–1054.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walker, R.B.J. (2010) After the Globe, Before the World. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, C. (2011) I am an American: Filming the Fear of Difference. Bristol: Intellect.

    Google Scholar 

  • Young, I.M. (2005) On Female Body Experience. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Yuval-Davis, N. and Anthias, F. (eds.) (1989) Woman-Nation-State. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Politics Department, University of Manchester, Arthur Lewis Building, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom

    Aoileann Ní Mhurchú

Authors
  1. Aoileann Ní Mhurchú
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ní Mhurchú, A. Thinking with reproduction: Maternal time, citizenship, migration and political subjectivity. Subjectivity 9, 17–37 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2015.22

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2015.22

Keywords

Search

Navigation