ABSTRACT
This article examines how distinct family reunifi cation and labor policies differentially affect migrant women’s strategies of transnational mothering. It looks at the ways in which migration policies frame the options and choices of migrant women regarding issues of care and social reproduction. I am interested in how certain policies have acted to structure women’s decisions and the practices of transnational mothering, and how female migrants respond to, resist, adapt to and/or bend the laws, rules and procedures emanating from specifi c policies. The interaction between states and migrant women is marked by this dual movement, in which states enable or disable practices that have specifi c consequences on how women deploy transnational ties for mothering. I look at two kinds of migration policies: family reunifi cation and labor migration quotas. My analysis focuses on both sides of the migration experience in an attempt to understand how distinct family reunifi cation and labor migration policies may lead to different mothering practices, as well as affecting conceptions of transnational motherhood.
