Empowered Mothering & Employment: A Study of Employed Myanmar Diasporic Mothers in Greater Toronto Area

My research study focuses on empowered mothering and employment in relation to first-generation migrant women from Myanmar (Burma) who have relocated to Canada. Specifically, I investigate how employed Myanmar diasporic mothers construct their own accounts of good mothering via the perspectives of empowerment and resistance in relation to the challenges associated with motherhood in the Canadian host country through the lenses of two feminist theories: maternal theory and feminist mothering theory. My investigation is based on a review of relevant works of maternal theorists and feminist migration scholars who explore the lived complexities of migrant mothers within the context of South East Asian migration to Western countries, as well as conducting a qualitative survey interview with eight employed Myanmar Diasporic mothers in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). My study has two main objectives: Firstly, it examines the experiences of employed mothers from Myanmar in the GTA who seek to challenge normative motherhood and the patriarchal culture of the sending country via an engagement with empowered mothering. Secondly, my findings will contribute to existing literature on motherhood studies by providing an overall caregiving narrative that focuses on the minority of employed Myanmar diasporic mothers who have been under-researched with regard to their perceptions of successful motherhood. To this end, I argue that the sociocultural constructions of motherhood that are embedded in patriarchal society do not preclude attempts of migrant mothers to actualize power/agency via creative mothering ideologies and practices despite the crossing of borders and continents.