ABOUT THIS BOOK

When the state withdraws support, migrant mothers build their own safety nets—a look at the strategies and struggles of those raising children under immigration insecurity.

Precarious Motherhood is a deeply human investigation of the lives of racially minoritized mothers as they navigate the intersecting challenges of financial hardship and the UK’s hostile immigration policies. Based on thorough ethnographic research, Rachel Benchekroun examines how these mothers forge relationships to access support, maintain their children’s well-being, and carve out spaces of belonging in an often unwelcoming system. The book captures the resilience and the relentless precarity of motherhood in migration, where every relationship shapes social barriers and everyday survival.

Through the voices of over twenty migrant mothers, this work sheds light on the personal and political dimensions of motherhood. It provides critical insights into state policies and social infrastructures that shape migrant lives, making it a valuable resource for scholars of migration and social justice.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Rachel Benchekroun is a senior research fellow at the University College London Social Research Institute.

REVIEWS

"Rachel Benchekroun shows how mothers living without citizenship in a migrant community in Britain navigate kin networks to guard against immigration policies designed to undermine their social connections...This book deftly analyses alternative avenues to community well-being in a context of state violence."

— Ruth Gomberg, Critical Urban Anthropology Association

"This beautifully written and meticulously researched ethnography captures vividly and with deep humanity the richness and complexities of migrant mothers’ lives as they navigate the violence of hostile immigration policies. Profoundly social, intimate and relational yet never losing sight of powerful exclusionary structures, Precarious Motherhood is accessible, thoughtful and illuminating."

— Cecilia Menjívar, University of California, Los Angeles

"Precarious Motherhood brilliantly captures the resilience of migrant mothers as they engage in "strategic mothering" – crafting networks of care and belonging against the backdrop of hostile immigration policies."

— Jessica Potter, Patients Not Passports Campaign

"In this book, drawing on the powerful narratives of 22 mothers, Rachel Benchekroun offers a searing analysis of the reality of being a migrant without recourse to public funds in twenty-first century Britain."

— Louise Ryan, London Metropolitan University

"This invaluable research show how hostile environment policies, high fees and prolonged temporary immigration status have damaged the lives of migrant mothers and their children."

— Colin Yeo, barrister and author

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 The Hostile Environment in the UK

Interlude: Ndidi: ‘They don’t have the same life’

2 Strategic mothering

Interlude: Catia: ‘Just stay here, stay quiet, because no-one will help you’

3 Coupledom

Interlude: Flora: ‘They don’t want to hear’

4 Friendship

Interlude: Kianga: ‘I will be somebody… to make them proud’

5 Adult kin relationships

Interlude: Claudia: ‘Not letting people in my life… it saves a lot’

6 Faith-based relationships

Conclusion
Glossary
References
Index