Contested narratives of belonging: Zimbabwean women migrants in Britain

Abstract

Abstract There is extensive research on gender and migration, however, Uwakweh (2014) notes that there is limited research on first generation black African women s experiences in the global North. Consequently, their voices are often ignored and/or undermined within social policy. This paper is based on a phenomenological study that employed African Feminist Standpoint Theory with an intersectional approach exploring black Zimbabwean women migrants experiences in Britain. The aims of this paper are firstly, to explore how gender intersects with other factors in black Zimbabwean women s reconstruction of their cultural identities and sense of belonging in Britain. Secondly, to examine how these cultural identities are established in spaces that socially position the women in multiply differentiated ways. Five focus group interviews, participant observations and nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with Zimbabwean women based in Reading, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Northampton,Coventry, London and Wolverhampton. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was utilised to analyse the narrations. The findings show that the women s cultural identities are ascribed by their cultures and mainly based on gendered roles. In Britain, these identities are fragmented, and the women then respond in divergent ways, based on the intersection of gender with race, age, culture, and prior experiences in Zimbabwe. The study contributes to gender and migration scholarship by demonstrating the everyday practises, mechanisms that migrant women employ in redefining their gendered cultural identities.