Gender, Motherhood, and Ethnicity: ‘Dialectical Social Imaginaries’ among South and Southeast Asian Women in Hong Kong

This article examines the ways in which gender, motherhood, and ethnicity shape the lived experiences of South and Southeast Asian mothers in Hong Kong. Through in-depth interviews with 54 mothers, we examine, what we term, ‘dialectical social imaginaries’ to understand how these mothers imagine their social surroundings and navigate challenges in this multicultural city, where traditional and progressive gender expectations coexist alongside ethnic diversity and discrimination. ‘Dialectical social imaginaries’ capture how individuals envision living together and interacting with different cultures, highlighting the tensions between following established norms and striving for change. The findings identify three types of ‘dialectical social imaginaries’, which are dialectical in that they swing between conformance to gender norms and transformation, between silence and resistance, and between distancing and belonging. Analyzing the reproductive and creative dimensions of these social imaginaries reveals diverse and often opposing forces of gendered expectations and cultures, demonstrating how socio-cultural forces facilitate and/or restrict individuals’ experiences of migration. This study contributes new insights to gender and migration studies by providing an analysis of the dialectic between social reproduction and transformation, and that of self/other entanglements. It highlights the conceptual utility of ‘dialectical social imaginaries’ for future sociological understandings of gender, migration, and culture.