Sentimentální peníze aneb Jaká je cena transnacionálního mateřství

Abstract

Abstract: This paper seeks to analyse the material and social practices of Ukrainian transnational mothers – female domestic workers – who are living and working in the Czech Republic. The author focuses on the specific emotional nature of domestic work – precarious working conditions and interactions with employers – which has become an important source of their income. In the second part of the paper, the author focuses on the social and sentimental significance of material objects (gifts) and remittances for the experience and practice of transnational motherhood. She explains how the consumption of remittances for their children works as an important strategy for transnational mothers to effectively identify and maintain their maternal role in the transnational social environment. She argues that this specific commodification of motherhood not only reflects the transformation of maternal practices (both of female employers and migrant women) in late capitalism, but also reflects gender, social, and other inequalities in the context of two transforming post-socialist societies.

Keywords

• transnational motherhood
• Ukraine
• migrant domestic workers
• remittances