8 - Kinship Ties and the Preferred Adaptive Strategies of Urban Migrants

Abstract

This chapter presents a theoretical framework within which diverse and contradictory ethnographic reports can be synthesized and interpreted, to illustrate the use of this framework in the research among migrant workers in New Zealand, and to explore some of the theoretical and research implications of this framework. Arguments over the persistence of the extended family among urban migrants are futile. The role that these kin relationships play for those involved in them, needs to be examined. Extended family ties can serve important instrumental and affective functions for a newcomer to the city. Some migrants might choose to elevate these relationships to the status of a major adaptive strategy; others might downplay them, preferring instead to depend on their own resources or those of their friends. The reasons why groups and individuals differ in this choice of emphasis is a major research problem for the future. Urban kin relationships can then be viewed not as the persistence, modification, or diminution of an earlier cultural form, but as part of an active, ongoing adaptation that individuals are making to their changing world.