| Summary: | Starting from the findings of their doctoral research based in Italy and in Île-de-France region, the authors have analyzed the racialization processes to which women of sub-Saharan origin are subjected in both contexts. They have shown how such processes translate into the construction of an idealized figure of the “African mother” usually understood by a number of health providers as easier to take care of and “close to nature”. Their subsequent research work, focused on the contemporary migration crisis and the arrival in Europe of sub-Saharan women with more precarious social profiles, mainly of Nigerian origin, led the authors to re-examine the representation that health professionals have about patients of sub-Saharan origin. A reconfiguration of racialized relations vis-à-vis the “African mother” emerges in the medical encounters between French and Italian caregivers and Nigerian women, often involved in the forced prostitution market. The incompatibility of the good mother figure and that of prostitute, as well as the sentiment of discomfort health providers feel because of the unsafe and precarious lifestyle these women undergo, represent – according to the authors – a thought-provoking frame for the analysis of what makes and unmakes stereotypical visions about mothers of sub-Saharan origin, as well as the changing dimension of differential care these women experience.
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