From diaspora to neighbourhood: Reconfiguring diasporic engagement through intra-diasporic solidarities among immigrant mothers in Quebec

This article examines the reconfiguration of diasporic engagement through everyday practices of immigrant mothers in Quebec. While previous scholarship on diaspora and diasporic philanthropy has focused on transnational flows, remittances, and formal organizations, this study highlights localized and relational forms of engagement within the host societies. Drawing on 20 qualitative interviews and 11 observations of immigrant mothers in Quebec, the analysis identifies four interconnected forms of diasporic engagement: intra-diasporic mutual aid, cultural transmission, informal community mediation, and transnational family care. Guided by feminist care theory and scholarship on social reproduction, the findings indicate that motherhood constitutes a central tenet for organizing solidarities, reproducing identities, and sustaining support networks across both local and transnational contexts. The article argues that immigrant mothers serve as micro-social infrastructures of diaspora, linking family, community, and neighbourhood lives. This perspective expands prevailing understandings of diasporic engagement as gendered, selective, and relational phenomenon embedded in everyday care practices.