Mobile mothering : women on two-way permit in Hong Kong

Abstract

Upon the release of Two-Way Permit (TWP) in November, 2002, the mainland women could go to Hong Kong to reunite with their family members before being granted the One-Way Permit (OWP). But the TWP only maintains three months of validity. When it expires, these women have to return to the mainland to renew the TWP. They are therefore put in a situation where they have to frequently and regularly cross the border. These women are usually mothers of children born to their husbands who are Hong Kong citizens. A concern about the citizenship status of their children to a large extent determines the latter’s residence. And under the weight of a motherhood ideology that assigns women to the primary responsibility of childcare, these women are forced by the circumstances to undertake a particular form of motherhood, namely mobile motherhood, to overcome the TWP constraint. This research aims to study how institutional constraint interacts with the identity, as well as agency, of motherhood in shaping the provision of mothering among the women on TWP regarding the replacement mothering, co-present mothering and the distant mothering. In this research, the mobile form of motherhood among this group of women is also found to be varying between those with and without children staying in the mainland, the latter being caused by a prior marriage in the case of reconstituted family to the differences further testify to the centrality of motherhood in these women’s subjective identity. The study also extends the prevailing discussions on family strategy in Hong Kong and mothering practices in transnational families.

Date of Award	2011
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology