scholarly journals Transnational families in the light of the practice-based approach

2020 ◽  
pp. 113-129
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Szyszka

Today, international migration is one of the main factors that determine functioning of families. Transnational families and transnational parenting are becoming increasingly more common and have been gaining considerable interest of researchers and social practitioners. One perspective that may be useful for examining transnational families is the practice-based approach. The concepts put forward by Morgan and Finch (‘doing’ and ‘displaying’ family) help to analyse families not as structures, but as everyday practices which constitute them (Morgan) and which must be associated with a system of meanings to be displayed (Finch). In the article, the analysis of transnational family practices will focus on the ‘tools’ for displaying (Finch) that are characteristic of transnational family life, and it will be based on the results of Polish and international studies. The article will discuss the tools proposed by Finch, such as physical objects or the use of narratives, as well as the use of technology in communication and taking care of children, as these practices are specific to transnational families. Those ‘tools’ for displaying show that transnational families are flexible, they are constantly happening, and by being embedded in broader systems of meanings, they become acceptable.

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Bonizzoni ◽  
Luisa Leonini

The article explores the experiences of separation and reunification by children of migrant mothers in Italy by analysing 32 qualitative interviews conducted with adolescents who had rejoined their mothers at different points in their lives. We show that international migration causes children to face multiple shifts in the configuration of their family ties due to the geographical dislocations and re-locations to which these ties are subject. The way in which children interpret and adjust to these changes depends on factors such as the timing of the family migration process and the frequency of transnational family practices, which are affected by more or less abrupt discontinuities in family life after their mothers’ and their own departure.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3-2019) ◽  
pp. 264-286
Author(s):  
Christian Schramm

This paper explores the figurational process in transnational families through the study of the biographical self-presentations and the life courses of family members who live apart (in Bilbao, Spain and Guayaquil, Ecuador) but remain interdependent. It asks which factors inside and outside the family figuration influence the negotiation of the fragile power balances along gender and generational lines, with what effect for the structure of positions, family norms, mutual expectations and the division of tasks. Special attention is given to the deep financial and economic crisis affecting Spain between 2008 and 2014 and how this sudden change of the context in one national society impacts the transnational family life. Results highlight the importance of the long-term pre-migration family figurational process for the way transnational family life is being shaped. They also show how a variety of influencing factors, observed during the migration period and located in different national societies and the transnational social space, is intertwined with the logic of this long-term process.


2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-136
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Nosek-Kozłowska

Economic migrations are a phenomenon that extends to many Polish families, causing changes in their structure and functioning. The effects of migration that affect the lives of children and young people brought up in transnational families seem to be particularly important. Children from transnational families have specific family experiences because they are related to the economic migration of one of the parents, which is associated with his longer absence. The motives for the trip, time of separation, and everyday life in each transnational family are different, therefore children from these families have various life experiences and create images of family life in various ways.


2020 ◽  
pp. 78-97
Author(s):  
Irena Juozeliūnienė ◽  
Indrė Bielevičiūtė ◽  
Irma Budginaitė-Mačkinė

In this chapter the authors examine how parenting in migration context is portrayed in the academic discourse in Lithuania. The authors reveal the depictions of migration-induced child caring practices, based on the results of analysis of academic publications (2004–2017) carried out from January to March 2018 as part of the sub-study of the research project ‘Global Migration and Lithuanian Family: Family Practices, Circulation of Care, and the Return Strategies’. The chapter focus on the portrayal of parenting within the host country, after return from emigration and in transnational family settings. The analysis reveals how value judgements about family life rooted in the low mobility discourse are reproduced in academic publications on family and migration and lead the researchers to portray parenting in migration as ‘troubling’.


Author(s):  
Marcela Sotomayor-Peterson ◽  
Ana A. Lucero-Liu

Research on transnational families mostly assumes long physical distances and long periods of separation. However, transnational families are diverse and reconfigure in a multitude of ways. The US–Mexican border in Arizona is historically a fluid one, where contact between families is a potential. This possibility of physical contact on a semi-regular basis makes the current sample unique from other transnational families. Using exploratory and descriptive analysis, this chapter provides a portrait of family life for migrant families along the Arizona–Sonora border with the goal of illustrating the diversity of family life for transnational families. Study findings suggest multiple family configurations, including transborder families (with members living within 60 miles of the border on either side) who have frequent physical contact and transnational families with long physical separations and little physical contact. Various aspects of family life (e.g., parenting) between transborder and transnational families are also compared.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mulki Al-Sharmani ◽  
Marja Tiilikainen ◽  
Sanna Mustasaari

This special issue seeks to enrich readers’ understandings of the transnational family practices and relations of selected migrant groups of a predominantly Muslim background in a number of Western contexts. It presents theoretically and empirically grounded studies that investigate how these family practices and ties are transnationally shaped, navigated and experienced by different family members. It focuses on two aspects of family life: marriage and the second generation’s aspirations and transnational experiences. Under the first theme, this special issue examines how marriage, migration and kinship interplay in transnationally shaped social fields where multiple legal and normative systems intersect in the lives of migrants. With regards to the second theme, the issue investigates how the children of migrants navigate and experience transnational family norms, ties and practices. Throughout the issue, individual articles shed light on the gendered dimensions of the different family practices and experiences.


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mulki M Al-Sharmani ◽  
Abdirashid A Ismail

In this article, we investigate how marriage practices of Somali migrants in Finland are influenced by their transnational kinship. We examine how transnational family ties play a role in migrants’ spouse selection, marriage arrangements, and management of spousal resources. We also identify the factors that enable migrants to successfully navigate marital challenges caused by their transnational kin-based ties. These factors are: companionate marriage relationship based on emotional closeness and flexible spousal roles, compatibility in spousal resources, and the cooperation of couples in navigating transnational family obligations. We show how gender and generation are at play (in complex ways) in the interplay between transnational kinship and marriage. We draw on interview data from 16 married male and female interviewees, taken from a larger sample of 37 informants of different marital statuses. Our analysis is also based on data from focus group discussions


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 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-250
Author(s):  
Sabiha Yeasmin Rosy ◽  
Fatemeh Nejati

Abstract This study investigates the impact of male labor migration upon wives living among their husbands’ extended families in Tajikistan. It studies the risks and choices available to such wives in bargaining for remittances, with a particular focus on the risks that daughters-in-law (kelin in Tajik) undertake when negotiating remittances with their mothers-in-law. This paper explores age and gender-specific norms in Tajik transnational families and their minimal opportunities for kelins to bargain and negotiate the risks associated with making “claims” on remittances by using Deniz Kandiyoti’s “patriarchal bargain” and Bina Agarwal’s household bargain framework, as well as extensive fieldwork conducted in Tajikistan. The study concludes that international migration and remittances have had a complex impact on gender norms in Tajikistan, with emerging new forms of passive negotiation by kelins unlikely to undermine patriarchal gender norms in their favor.


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’.


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