Göçmen Bakıcı ve Anne Arasında İlişkisel Müzakere Süreçleri: Bakıcılıktan Kurgusal Akrabalığa
Canan Neşe Kınıkoğlu, Zehra Zeynep Sadıkoğlu, Fatih YamanNeoliberalleşme bağlamında çoğunlukla enformel olarak gerçekleşen göçmen bakıcı istihdamı Türkiye’de çocuk bakım hizmetini sağlamanın önemli yollarından biri haline gelmiştir. Bu araştırma İstanbul’da yatılı göçmen bakıcıların bulunduğu beş haneye fenomenolojik bir yaklaşımla odaklanarak annelik ve bakıcılık rollerinin hanede ilişkisellikle nasıl müzakere edildiğini incelemektedir. Araştırmanın ilk aşamasında beş anne ve beş göçmen bakıcı ile yapılan derinlemesine görüşmelerden elde ettiğimiz bulgulara göre bakıcı ve anne arasında güvenli bir ilişkisellik ilk uzlaşı evresinde kurulmakta, sonrasında çocuk bakımı ve annelik rollerinde kültürel benzerlik ve farklılıklar asimetrik bir şekilde oluşan kurgusal akrabalık üzerinden müzakere edilerek uyumlanma evresine geçilmektedir. Hane içi düzen evresinde ise göçmen bakıcı ve anne arasında gelişen ilişkisellik, hane üyelerinin kendine özgü iletişim tutumlarına göre değişen, bakıcının başta anne olmak üzere aile üyeleriyle kurduğu ilişkide gizil ve açık müzakere süreçlerini besleyen ancak nihayetinde duygusal emeğin baskın olarak ailenin beklentilerine göre uyarlandığı bir yapı sunmaktadır.
Relational Negotiation Processes Between Migrant Care Workers and Mothers: From Caregiving to Fictive Kinship
Canan Neşe Kınıkoğlu, Zehra Zeynep Sadıkoğlu, Fatih YamanWith Türkiye’s adoption of neoliberal policies regarding care services over the last few decades, informally employed migrant care workers have become an important source for providing childcare in Türkiye. This research explores how caregiving roles are negotiated through the relationship between live-in migrant care workers and the mothers who hire them. The study uses a phenomenological approach to focus on five households with migrant care workers in Istanbul, the hub of migrant workers in Türkiye. According to the preliminary findings, a secure relationality between migrant care workers and mothers is established in the first reconciliation phase when the migrant care worker is hired into the household. In the second adaptation phase, cultural similarities and differences between the migrant care worker and the mother arise in the field of childcare. These are negotiated through a fictive kinship, whose borders are often drawn by the mother unilaterally. The last phase consolidates the household routines and orders. Here, the relationality between the migrant care worker and the mother is established through the implicit and open negotiation processes regarding childcare. This research argues that, while this process is predominantly adapted to the expectations of the mother, migrant care workers do not internalize the fictive kinship the mother has constructed and the insecure employment conditions.
The integration of non-state actors into the sphere of social welfare in Türkiye, the increase in the employment of women, and the “welfare gap” (Vobruba, 1998), especially in the care sector, have given rise to “global care chains” (Hochshild, 2000). An informal labor pool has emerged of migrant women, made up mostly of those who came from former Soviet Union countries (Akalın, 2007, p. 210). This research explores how the roles of motherhood and caregiving are reproduced by focusing on intra-household negotiations and seeks answers to the following questions: (1) How is the relationality between live-in migrant care workers and mothers negotiated? (2) How are the culturally differentiating caregiving and domestic roles shared between migrant care workers and the mothers who hire them? As a result, the study aims to understand and describe the negotiations involved in the unequal relationality between the two parties as well as their competing and overlapping ideas about motherhood and caregiving.
Conceptual Framework
The scholarly literature on migrant care workers focuses on (1) the problems migrant women experience (Anderson, 2012), (2) the exploitation of their physical and emotional labor through fictive kinship ties (Baldassar et al., 2017), and (3) mothers’ perceptions of migrant care workers (Yazgan et al., 2017). These studies usually shed light on the perspectives and experiences of either the migrant care workers or the mothers through concepts such as emotional labor, fictive kinship, and global care chains. However, a focus on the negotiation of childcare in households where the migrant care worker and mother live together requires an analysis that goes beyond isolated perspectives (Erdem & Şahin, 2009, p. 283). The precarious working conditions of care workers (Hellgren, 2015), as well as the problems arising from cultural and class differences inside the household, determine how caregiving roles are negotiated between the migrant care worker and the mother who hires her.
Methods
This study employs a phenomenological qualitative research design that analyzes subjective meanings and experiences through social interaction in order to understand the relational negotiations regarding the caregiving roles between a mother and migrant care worker. While households receiving live-in childcare services constitute the unit of analysis, the subjects of the research are migrant care workers and the mothers who hire them in Istanbul, the hub of migrant care workers in Türkiye (Ministry of Labor and Social Security, 2019). Using the quota sampling technique, the study group includes mothers and their live-in migrant care workers who have been sharing the same house for at least the last three months, with the aim of reaching a total of 20 participants (i.e., 10 migrant care workers and 10 mothers). The data collection process started in January 2022, and the study so far has been able to include five households that employ migrant care workers, for a current total of 10 participants (i.e., 5 migrant care workers and 5 mothers).
Findings and Conclusion
According to the preliminary findings, the relationality between the mothers and the migrant care workers emerges over three main phases. The first is the reconciliation phase, where the caregiver and the mother reveal their expectations and recruitment criteria. While both parties have similar concerns about privacy and security that arise from living in the same house, the mother is distinguished in this stage by her worries about both the care worker’s ability to provide proper care for the child as well as the possible emotional attachment that will occur between the child and the migrant care worker. The care worker is particularly concerned about taking responsibility for someone else’s child and the language barrier. The mothers noted that language, religion, and ethnicity were not significant criteria for recruitment, instead specifying the significance of the care worker having a loving and caring approach toward the child as well as having a proactive role in the household. The care workers’ expectations mainly center on having good household relationships and obtaining a good income. The second adaptation stage shows the cultural differences and similarities between the mother and the care worker to become visible through the competing and overlapping ideas of what being a good mother and proper childcare mean. The mother’s and migrant worker’s ideas of what being a good mother means mostly converge on this point, and this agreement is defined beyond cultural differences within the framework of the intensive emotional care given to the child. However, the findings from this study showcase this cultural transcendence and conformity to dissolve around participants’ ideas about the meanings of proper childcare. In some households, migrant care workers prefer the traditional childrearing practices they had internalized back in their countries while criticizing the mothers for pursuing book-based childrearing techniques. Concurrently, the mothers criticize the care workers for their poor hygiene habits, inadequate childcare skills, and cultural differences, which they believe are rooted in the living conditions in their previous hometowns. Within this context, a majority of the mothers conceive migrant care workers as part of the family, and migrant care workers hold that they care for the children as if they are their own. Nevertheless, some of the migrant care workers in these households underlined how they do not see themselves as part of the family. Indeed, they believe that an employer-employee relationship exists inside the household. This inconsistency shows the boundaries of the fictive kinship to have been drawn unilaterally, predominantly by the mother. The last stage involves how household routines and order are maintained; during this stage, the initially secure relationality between the migrant care worker and the mother transforms in line with the unique communication strategies of the household members. The relationality between the migrant care worker and the mother is established through the implicit and open negotiation processes regarding childcare. Based on these findings, this study argues that, while this process is predominantly adapted to the expectations of the mother, migrant care workers do not internalize the fictive kinship the mother has constructed and the insecure employment conditions.
