“What would my future be?”: Conceptualization of the “future” among Syrian newcomer mothers in Canada

• In Event: 4349 - Migratory Aspirations: How Aspiring Migrants and Refugees Decide to Leave

Abstract

The recent influx of Syrian refugees into Canada over the past few years has encouraged scholars to analyze the integration process of this population into the host society as well as the different challenges that they may face. Women with children, in particular, have been the focus of many studies since they constitute the largest proportion of displaced people. Scholars have focused significant attention on the geographical aspect of forced migration, and the consequences of refugees’ movement across space. However, they have not addressed the idea of the “future” for refugee populations who are forced to settle and to build a new life in a new country. In this paper, I attempt to connect scholarship on forced migration and cultural concepts of the future in order to examine the temporal dimensions of forced migration. Using semi-structured interviews with 41 Syrian mothers who have recently arrived in Canada, this paper investigates refugee mothers’ conceptualization of their (and their children’s) future in Canada. More precisely, I argue that forced migration and the status of “refugeeness” heavily shape newcomers’ perception of time in general, and of the future in particular. I find that mothers deliberately “foreclose” their own timeline in order to focus on their children’s future in Canada. Moreover, a sense of “scrambled timeline” is emergent: mothers cannot separate their future projections from the present nor from the past. Finally, key cultural and religious orientations to the future further shape mothers’ perceptions.

Author

• Laila Omar, University of Toronto