‘—

Robert Walczak Assignment 10

Arlie Hochschild, Lise Widding Isaksen, and Sambasivan Uma Devi all go over on what the “the commons” are in understanding South-North migration in their article “Global Care Crisis: A Problem of Capital, Care Chains, or Commons?” They go into the global economic system that is created when women migrant from one country to another in search of jobs to support their families. These jobs that most migrants take would be care taking jobs such as nursing elderly and other peoples’ children and maids. In the South this takes a toll in what Hochschild and her coauthors call a brain and care drain on their home countries. Another concern made by the authors would be the struggles mothers have with the separation of their children and what the mothers themselves go through. Migrant mothers often are faced with the accusations of being a bad mother or materialistic because they had to leave. Devi notes that for migrant Kerala mothers it’s a taboo to talk about how their children are doing because of the anguish they already feel from the separation. This on top of the other problems they face such as the low pay, long hours, and sexual exploitation make the experience truly horrible. The child also faces problems, without their mother to care for them they lose a very important part of their life. This can cause problems with them and how they see their mothers due to them not being there. It can lead to a problem between how the relationship with a mother and her child is created and kept.