Caring labour: A multi-modal study of migrant workers’ care practices and mobilities

Application summary

Care mobilises individuals globally: people migrate in order to provide for their families, while simultaneously care needs in the global North mobilise large-scale global labour migrations. This multi-modal study of migrant workers’ care practices and mobilities analyses how migration transforms informal care practices and what kind of cross-border and local mobilities emerge from care needs. The project addresses the gap in existing research that has overlooked how migrant workers in precarious and temporary but essential jobs care for their families and friends local and transnationally. We adopt a multimodal research strategy to analyse various informal care practices and mobilities migrant workers create to provide for family, friends and for themselves locally and across borders. The project new empirical knowledge on migrant workers’ informal care practices locally and transnationally, paying attention to mobilities, citizenship hierarchies and racialisation processes. It advances multimodal research and conceptualisation of informal care and mobilities in migration contexts. It creates more varied narratives of labour migration through research collaboration with photography and journalism. The project involves a collaborative effort between researchers, a photographer, and a journalist. It aims to capture the simultaneously embodied and virtual practices of care and mobilities that emerge from local and transnational care needs in various visual and textual forms. The project disseminates its findings through various channels: a podcast series a multimedia exhibition, a creative nonfiction book, academic peer-reviewed articles and a PhD dissertation. The findings will enhance societal understanding of migrant experiences. They challenge perceptions of migrants as mere economic assets or liabilities and may advocate for institutional and political changes that support migrants’ family life.