The Kazakh–German Social Space: Decreasing Transnational Ties and Symbolic Social Protection

Abstract

AbstractThrough migration, expectations and obligations of social protection can change and migrants can be faced with the situation where they are not able to fulfil these new expectations, for example, because of a lack of (financial) resources. The sending of parcels to Kazakhstan will be used in this paper as an example of one form of symbolic protection – by which we mean protection where the symbolic value is very high whilst the material value is low – within the German–Kazakh social space, which allows migrants to maintain transnational ties and be the provider of protection to their relatives left behind. Drawing on interviews collected in a multi‐sited matched sample approach, we demonstrate that when family members in both countries compare life chances, a ‘transnational space of comparison’ emerges. Transnational comparisons in the German–Kazakh social space shape expectations of reciprocity in informal protection that often diverge from those within the national space. For example, migrants in Germany can be defined by their family members as in need of protection within a national network but at the same time as providers of protection within transnational networks. We argue that transnational comparisons can lead to inequalities within multi‐locally organised families, such as the exclusion of migrants in Germany from transnational informal protection. Our study contributes to the literature on social protection by drawing attention to a form of protection in transnational spaces that has low material but high symbolic value, indicating the symbolic dimension of social protection. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.