scholarly journals Social remittances during COVID-19: on the “new normality” negotiated by transnational families

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nare Galstyan ◽  
Mihran Galstyan

AbstractSocial remittances- the transfer of ideas, practices, and codes of behaviors- are a well-documented subject in migrant transnationalism literature and transnational family studies. However, the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak has generated unprecedented regulations around the world which require widening the conceptual basis of social remittances in a state of emergency. As the pandemic progresses, most countries require civilians to follow a number of norms deemed as the “new normality,” while other countries continue to operate under their “old normality,” with minor or no restrictions. As national pandemic policy responses vary across countries, transnational families live under different regimes of “normality.” In these settings, the study of transnational families offers a valuable opportunity to examine a special type of social remittances practiced during global crises, and analyze whether the exchange of rules, practices, and ideas across national borders has any impact on re-shaping and renegotiating pandemic-coping “new normality” practices for both migrants and their families. The paper is based on 13 in-depth interviews conducted with representatives from Armenian transnational families with migrant members in Russia, the Czech Republic, or Belarus. These countries provide a backdrop for an examination of social remittances among transnational families that we term “pandemic transnationalism.” The study shows that the circulation of safety rules and “good practices” actively shapes the everyday behavior of migrants and their families, their level of perceived danger towards the coronavirus, and their practical knowledge of safety measures. The latter are often harnessed in informal collective settings despite being in conflict with the obligations and regulations of their home society.

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 788-803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Marino

This article discusses video-based platforms as drivers of transconnective spaces for transnational families to do familyhood. By looking at how Italians living in London use Skype to re-stage family rituals at a distance, I examine the centrality of culinary practices in relation to family work. In doing this, I also expand on the role of polymedia environments in enabling emotional proximity and the formation of a sense of mediated co-presence within transnational contexts. In-depth interviews were conducted with members of the Facebook group Italian Gals in London to unpack how lived geographies of migration intersect with media technologies and practices to create a new transconnective habitus around food preparation, cooking and dining. The study reveals that while Skype provides emotional connectivity, communicative challenges and tensions can also occur as a result of the ‘ephemerality’ of video calls and as technological asymmetries emerge among transnational family members.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-164
Author(s):  
Yvona Kostelecká ◽  
Tereza Komárková ◽  
Veronika Novotná

Abstract In March 2020 a state of emergency was declared in the Czech Republic in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which that resulted in the closures of schools. The provision of education continued through mandatory remote home-based education. The aim of this study is to use in-depth interviews to show how Czech families with children at the primary levels of education have coped with this situation. Based on a qualitative analysis, it is possible to state that the families who participated in the research were coping well with the situation and had come up with effective arrangements both for providing education and for fulfilling other responsibilities. The research also revealed that many families consider this to be very demanding time. At the same time, we identified that the way how families tackled the situation of home-based education depended on several factors. The key role was played by the school factor, namely the quality of remote education offered by school and the communication between the school and the parents. The analysis showed that although the quality of communication and remote education offered by school improved between spring 2020 and autumn 2020, schools still have much room to improve the education provided.


Author(s):  
Tyas Retno Wulan ◽  
Lala M. Kolopaking ◽  
Ekawati Sri Wahyuni ◽  
Irwan Abdullah

Social remittances (ideas, system practice, and social capital flow from the receiving country to the home country) of Indonesian female migrant workers (BMP) in Hong Kong appeared better and more complete than other BMP in other countries like Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, or Singapore.  Based on that research, we are encouraged to do extensive research in order to identify factors  that push  BMP’s social remittances development  in Hong Kong, to identify kinds of social remmitances they receive  and to understand on how far their social remittances become a medium to empower them and their society.  This study is done in qualitative method that uses an in-depth interview technique and FGD.  Subjects of study are BMP, the government (Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration and BNP2TKI), NGOs, migrant workers’ organization and researchers of BMP. The study done in Cianjur (West Java), Wonosobo and Banyumas (Central Java) and Hong Kong indicates that during their migration process, female migrant workers not only have economical remittance that can be used for productive activities, but also social remittances.  The social remittances are in the form practical knowledge such as language skill and nursery; knowledge on health, financial management; ethical work; the mindset changing and networking. The study  indicate that female migrant workers are extraordinary women more than just an ex-helper.  Their migration has put them into a position as an agent of development in society.Key words: Indonesians  female migrant workers, social remmitances, empowerment


2021 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2110061
Author(s):  
Rahel Kunz ◽  
Brenda Ramírez

In the wake of the global financial crisis and a context of stagnating development aid, the international community now promotes linking remittances to finance as a development strategy, in what has been termed the ‘financialisation of remittances’ (FOR). This article analyses the ways in which the financialisation of remittance manifests in Mexico in gendered ways, and what this tells us about financialisation and financial subjectivation processes beyond the global North. We find that the financialisation of remittance represents a shift from earlier remittance-based development models whereby remittances become linked to financial inclusion and social welfare agendas and the focus is broadened beyond migrant income to diaspora wealth. Focusing on the governing arrangements of the financialisation of remittance, we propose the concept of ‘constellation of subjectivities’ in order to analyse the interrelated and interacting programmatic subjectivities through which the financialisation of remittance manifests in Mexico. Combining this conceptualisation with interdisciplinary feminist insights on financialisation, we analyse the various intersecting social dynamics that weave through such constellations. The analysis – based on document, interview and observation material – finds that the financialisation of remittance in Mexico creates and governs a gendered constellation of financial subjectivities with three dimensions: migrant men, remittance-receiving women and the constitutive outside of the non-transnational family. While most studies tend to focus on transnational families, we demonstrate that non-transnational families are an integral part of the financialisation of remittance. Our analysis destabilises the notion of the universal financial subject and highlights the importance of broadening our analysis of financialisation to constitutive outsides that often fall off the radar.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0961463X2098781
Author(s):  
Petr Kubala ◽  
Tomáš Hoření Samec

This article focuses on the topic of the young adult’s cleft habitus influenced by a housing affordability crisis in the Czech Republic and examines how this situation affects the young adult’s relation to the imagination of a temporally structured life course and synchronization of life spheres (housing, family, and work). This article is based on qualitative in-depth interviews conducted in the four cities most affected by the house and rent price increase. The general question addresses if and how social inequalities, sharpened by the current housing affordability crisis, affect the process of narrative life course coherence creation (the connection of past, present, and future) in relation to an orientation toward a vision of “the good life.” We furthermore complement the already existing ideal types of the young adult’s relation toward time— confident continuity and cautious contingency—with two other two types— cautious continuity and total contingency—defined on the basis of our data. We argue that the ability of young adults to envision a coherent future is related to the feeling of secured housing and that the idea of the good life is depicted to a large extent through the ideal of homeownership, although the precarity of the housing market makes homeownership harder to reach for those from unprivileged backgrounds.


2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 760-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cinzia D Solari

Although migration scholars have called for studying both ends of migration, few studies have empirically done so. In this article the author analyzes ethnographic data conducted with migrant careworkers in Italy, many undocumented, and their non-migrant children in Ukraine to uncover the meanings they assign to monetary and also social remittances defined as the transfer of ideas, behaviors, and values between sending and receiving countries. The author argues that migrants and non-migrant children within transnational families produce a transnational moral economy or a set of social norms based on a shared migration discourse – in this case, either poverty or European aspirations – which governs economic and social practices in both sending and receiving sites. The author found that these contrasting transnational moral economies resulted in the production of ‘Soviet’ versus ‘capitalist’ subjectivities with consequences for migrant practices of integration in Italy, consumption practices for migrants and their non-migrant children, and for Ukraine’s nation-state building project.


2019 ◽  
Vol 173 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinyu Zhao

This article investigates Chinese international students’ everyday transnational family practices through the use of social media. Specifically, the article highlights the relevance of two interlinked forms of disconnection in these students’ daily negotiations of ambivalent cross-border family relations in an age of always-on connectivity. The first form involves their disconnection from the general public via their creation of intimate spaces on social media that are exclusive to their family members. The second form involves the students detaching themselves from such intimate spaces, often temporarily, to escape and resist familial control and surveillance. I conclude the article by developing the notion of ‘disconnective intimacy’ to conceptualise contemporary Chinese transnational families. This article contributes to the literature on the transnational family by providing an insight into the micro-politics of mediated co-presence through the trope of ‘disconnective practice’.


2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Κατερίνα Βασιλικού

<p>In this paper, there is an effort to make a<br />classifi cation of the family relations of the<br />immigrant women who come to Greece<br />from Eastern Europe and the Balkans to<br />work as domestic workers. First, we have a<br />presentation of the state of research about<br />‘transnational’ families and of the relevant<br />terminology. Then, from a biographical<br />research on these women and on the basis of<br />their testimonies we see that the separation<br />and the reunion are the two limits of<br />existence of the transnational family. Women<br />fi nd ways of keeping the family united and at<br />the same time they defi ne largely in this way<br />their identity. Finally, a categorization of the<br />family ties of immigrant women shows that<br />the relation parents-children is the more<br />decisive for the existence of the transnational<br />family.</p>


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