Migration and subjectivity

Recent scholarship on migration studies the “complex forms of subjectivity and feeling that emerge through geographical mobility” (Conradson and McKay, 2007, p. 167; see also Silvey, 2013). Such scholarship underlines the relational nature of subject formation, implicating the discursive fields through which migrants’ subjectivities are formed (see Silvey, 2004; Conradson and McKay, 2007; Hopkins and Noble, 2009). It follows then, that scholars have worked to understand the ways in which migration, a major lifecourse event that disrupts everyday life, results in new forms of subjectivity (Conradson and Latham, 2007; Datta et al., 2009; Ley and Tse, 2013; Silvey, 2005, 2013). Much of the research on migrant subjectivities focuses on shifting subject positions as an outcome of migration and this focus on migrant’s subjectivities after

arriving in the host country seems, to some extent, to overlook migrants’ anticipations

of how their sense of self will change through migration as a driver of migration. However, recent scholarship has uncovered the possibility for new forms of selfhood as a driver of migration, illuminating perceptions of migration as providing an opportunity through which “the self can be worked upon” (Conradson and Latham, 2007, p. 232). Indeed, in their work with New Zealand skilled migrants in London, Conradson and Latham (2007, p. 234) suggest that among some migrants “the attractions and experience of relocation to London” and the possibilities for “resubjectification”, can be as important as employment or economic factors in influencing the decision to migrate. Thus, Conradson and Latham (2007, p. 235) argue that for these New Zealanders, migration is shaped by their perceptions of the “affective possibilities” of London,

meaning the possibility for “new modes of feeling and being. It is about the connection between mobility, enactment and the potential transformation of the self.”

In so doing, the authors draw on Fielding (1992, p. 205), who examines the possibilities of migration in terms of freedoms, including “freedom to present oneself as a different sort of person, freedom to become a different person.” However, caution is needed, because as Freeman (2005, p. 157) found in her study with Moroccan migrant women in France, the notion of freedom associated with autonomy and individualism is based on “Western liberal conceptions of subjectivity and freedom”. Instead, she declares that the Moroccan women in her study expressed a “notion of relational freedom and identity.” Likewise, Silvey (2007, p. 222) highlights the “long history of ethnographically informed disruptions of western dualisms about self/other, individual/community, and interiority/exteriority”.

Notwithstanding such concerns, insights from this body of work could help to illuminate some of the most intimate meanings and expectations that Muslim women attach to migration, which may be hidden by focusing only on the more pronounced reasons for migrating. However, in so doing, it is also important to consider the ways in which Muslim women’s perceptions of the possibilities for resubjectification through migration are dependent on their imaginings of life in Scotland. This raises the possibility of looking more closely at the imaginative geographies underpinning Muslim women’s migration to Scotland. Said’s (1978) seminal work, Orientalism, examines imaginative geographies as a product of discourses of power through which the West was positioned in opposition to the “Other”—the exotic “East”. In so doing, Said (1978) “illustrates the power of our ideas about other people and places” (Holloway and Valentine, 2000, p. 337). Examining migration through the lens of imaginative geographies can illuminate the ways in which migration is shaped by migrants’ perceptions of life and imagination of the destination country.

In a study with British migrants to rural France, Benson (2012) shows that an imagination of the rural idyll, in which neighbours are friendly and life is more relaxed, prompts this form of migration. Benson (2012, p. 1688) argues, therefore, that this migration is driven by the way rural France is “imagined to uniquely offer a particular way of life.” Likewise, recent attention to student mobility has also pointed out the

imaginative geographies that shape this form of transnational migration (Beech, 2014; Findlay et al., 2012; Madge et al., 2009). Indeed, the “choice” of a UK education emphasises the continued power of postcolonial discourses that position the UK education system as superior (Madge et al., 2009). Beech (2014, p. 172) testifies that the British Council, which, she reminds, is in itself a postcolonial institution, uses promotional material such as DVDs to “market the UK” to students as “the place to receive a world-class education, alongside other opportunities for personal growth.” Beech’s (2014) emphasis on personal growth thus shows that the possibility to transform the self, or “to be someone different,” is a perception shaped by imaginative geographies.

Writing on Muslim women’s migration from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia for domestic work, Silvey (2005, 2007) examines the role of religious discourses in shaping Javanese domestic worker migration to Saudi Arabia. Specifically, Silvey (2007, p. 219) evaluates the “imagined geographies of gendered piety” that are deployed by recruitment agencies. These agencies draw on the idea of the umma, that is the global community of Muslims, to stress Saudi Arabia as a “safe” “Muslim” environment, where the women are unlikely to come into contact with haram (forbidden) things and that in this traditional Islamic state, men and women rarely meet. Furthermore, Silvey (2005, p. 141) observes that migration to Saudi Arabia offers these women the chance to pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the five pillars of Islam, and thus offers them “religious prestige” on return to Indonesia. Again then, it is possible to see how opportunities for feeling or being through migration are tied up with imaginative geographies and have an important influence on migration behaviours.

This section has sought to introduce some alternative conceptual approaches and insights for examining Muslim family-related migration. With this aim in mind, the focus has been less on the family and more on the individual reasons people migrate. In so doing, the section draws attention to recent conceptual approaches that emphasise the possibilities for resubjectification through migration as a driver of migration behaviour. Through this lens, it is possible to explore the extent to which the chance to be a different person, to feel differently, is a consideration for Muslim migrant women in “choosing” to migrate. Furthermore, the insights here enable a deeper exploration of the ways in which religious and gendered discourses work to shape Muslim women’s

imaginative geographies and thus their perceptions of the possibilities that migration offers for resubjectification.