Benchekroun, Rachel;
(2023)
Mothers Doing Friendship in a Hostile Environment: Navigating Dialectical Tensions and Sharing Support.
Sociology
10.1177/00380385231184812.
(In press).
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Abstract
Increasingly hostile immigration policies in the UK produce insecure immigration statuses and exclusion from public services and mainstream welfare benefits. Little is known about how this precaritization affects racially minoritized mothers with insecure immigration statuses and ‘no recourse to public funds’. The ethnographic study on which this article is based explored the impact of hostile policies on mothering, and found that precaritization increases the significance of mothers’ informal support networks, including friendships. I show how hostile policies constrain mothers’ friendship practices, shaping access to support. I argue that while mothers share diverse forms of support through their everyday friendship practices, they have to navigate dialectical tensions (contradictions) that play out in ways specific to their precarious legal and financial positioning. Applying theories of friendship and relational dialectics, I highlight the importance of safe, sociable spaces and sustained ‘friendship work’ to navigate tensions and nurture friendships as sites of support.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Mothers Doing Friendship in a Hostile Environment: Navigating Dialectical Tensions and Sharing Support |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/00380385231184812 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385231184812 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10174796 |
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