Members Of Transnational Families Research Articles

Reconstructing a niche sociality during the postpartum period: A qualitative study about the experience of becoming a mother as an immigrant in Switzerland

Epidemiological studies conducted in high-income countries have shown that immigrant mothers and their children suffer from an augmented morbidity and mortality, including with regard to their mental health. Drawing on the “niche sociality” concept (Manning et al., 2023) as an analytic tool, our paper aims to analyze the postpartum experience of immigrant mothers in Switzerland as well as the circumstances to which these mothers connect their experience and often their distress. This qualitative study included semidirected interviews with immigrant mothers (n=20) and with the health and social care professionals who cared for them (n=26) as well as ethnographic observations. We conducted a thematic analysis and triangulated the data produced with mothers themselves and professionals. Immigrant mothers shared mixed feelings regarding their experience. They often lived their maternity while experiencing a gendered loneliness. As members of transnational families, they dearly missed their relatives living abroad. Their position as new mothers and as immigrant persons comprised complex sociomaterial ordeals related to their (un)employment, housing, and sociality. Drawing from their practice in the community, professionals' narratives completed mothers'. Professionals critiqued the unequal access to quality health care as well as the petty measures that interfered with mothers' and infants’ safety that were taken by street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 2010 (1980)). Reflexive and engaging, mothers shared sensible and nuanced narratives about their experience and initiatives to rebuild their niche sociality.

The transnational fathering practices of deported men in El Salvador

AbstractDrawing on qualitative research conducted in El Salvador, the author examines the transnational fathering practices of Salvadoran immigrant men who were deported from the United States. By using a transnational fathering practices conceptual model, the author was able to examine the transnational fathering practices of deported men in El Salvador who had children in the U.S. This study revealed the harmful effects of U.S. immigration policies and enforcement practices on Salvadoran transnational families. The author focused on three key areas including deported father's (1) role in providing financially for their transnational families, (2) their efforts in maintaining their transnational family networks, and (3) their communication with transnational family members via information technology. First, Salvadoran fathers in this study shared their experiences attempting to provide financially for their transnational families. Secondly, deported fathers shared their desire to keep their transnational families together, their attempt to restore their strained relationships with their children, and recover from past traumas within their parent‐child relationships. Lastly, Salvadoran fathers reported using technology to communicate with their transnational families. This study provides insight into the issues that transnational fathers and their children experience and the need for new policies to support family reunification efforts.

“Не такі, як всі”? Відносини транснаціональних сімей з рідним суспільством – між стигмою та діалогом

The study discusses whether and how Ukrainian and Moldovan migrant parents, some of whom had to leave their children behind in the care of other adults, are faced with a disapproving public discourse while also facing strong pressure both in their relationship with the public authorities and at the level of society, community, and family. Through this approach, we aim to answer the following question: Are Ukrainian and Moldavian transnational family members subjected to a process of stigmatization at the level of society and their immediate social environment? In this view, we develop a qualitative inquiry based on in-depth interviews with respondents from Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova. Our main research objective is to examine the attitudes encountered by members of transnational families in society, their relations with the representatives of the authorities, as well as in their close social environment, community, and family. Specific research topics are explored, such as reasons for migration, trust in public authorities, local community, migrants’ community, trust in the host country’s state and society, the attitudes towards the most important key stakeholders involved in the migration process, as well as the support measures proposed by migrants and their families. The findings concerning the attitudes, level of trust, and proposals suggest the presence of a certain degree of stigmatization of parents from transnational families. Our study underlines the need for transnational transfer of good practices and real-life experiences, such as those of migrants, to not remain an empty imitation. This experience can only be transferred through dialogue, trust, and acceptance – which is not the case at the time of our research. Therefore, it is imperative to continue dialogue-based fieldwork with primary stakeholders, the families themselves, to deconstruct and prospectively avoid the structural construction of stigma.

Вплив трудової міграції з Республіки Молдова на дітей залишених вдома (погляд батьків та опікунів)

The article presents the results of a sociological study that reflects the impact produced by the labour migration of parents from the Republic of Moldova on left-behind children seen from the perspective of adults – migrant parents, stay-behind parents, and caregivers. In December 2021 and January 2022, during the CASTLE (Children Left Behind by Labour Migration: Supporting Moldovan and Ukrainian Transnational Families in the EU) project, in the Republic of Moldova, 36 adults (labour migrant parents, stay-behind parents and caregivers) were interviewed. And during April 2022, 13 migrant parents and parents who stay home with their children participated in the focus group discussions. Sociological research has primarily focused on the following aspects: the general context of labour migration; relations with the local public administration; caring for left-behind children; the influence of labour migration on the physical health and psycho-emotional state of children; the influence of labour migration on academic success, kindergarten activities, and children’s social integration; communication between migrant parents and left behind children; the influence of labour migration on the well-being of transnational families and the material support given to children; plans for the future and expectations from the state. Among the main problems faced by children left at home and other members of transnational families, the following can be mentioned: communication deficiencies, the difficulties of remote education of children, the negative influence of migration on the psycho-emotional status of left-behind children, and the challenges of left-behind children’s socialisation. Parents and caregivers report other problems, such as communication deficiencies with local public administrations, communication problems within the community, and problems related to caring for children left at home. The absence for an extended period of one or both parents can cause inadequate care and support for left-behind children and many other problems. The study shows that some parents are very dissatisfied with what the state does for them. Adults (parents and caregivers) believe that the state is mainly to blame because the citizens are forced to leave. Even if there are specific positive influences on left-behind children and transnational families in general, such as material well-being, the negative influences of migration prevail. The article concludes that the impact of the labour migration of parents on left-behind children is vital. As a result of migration, there are many problems. State authorities and civil society must make joint efforts to support both migrant parents and left-behind children affected by migration.

Asserting children's rights through the digital practices of transnational families

AbstractObjectiveThis study investigates how transnational families function as advocates, channels, and iterators of children's rights in the context of digital communication.BackgroundTransnational parents are involved in practices of doing family through digital copresence, in doing rights toward society and coagency among family members, creating a rights context.MethodData were collected in Moldova and Ukraine through 102 semistructured interviews and 10 focus group discussions with adults and children in transnational families and caregivers, and 24 interviews with experts from local and national authorities as well as NGOs.ResultsTransnational parents represent their children by engaging in digital communication practices with institutions and maintain family togetherness through involvement and support of children within transnational family relationships. Communication with institutions is burdened by distrust of and constraints regarding information and communication technologies (ICT) access, the limited availability of adults as interlocutors for daily communication, and deliberate nontransparency of communication at both ends.ConclusionDigital communication offers families the capability to represent children's rights externally, and to create internal family togetherness as a potentially new register of presence, articulated by the limits and specificity of the mode of communication employed.ImplicationsInclusive digital communication capacities of transnational family members necessary for the practice of family togetherness, exercise of parental responsibilities, and support for children's participation should be enhanced on both ends as well as within and without the family.

Welfare Paradoxes and Interpersonal Pacts: Transnational Social Protection of Latin American Migrants in Spain

This article analyses the relationship between migration, care work, and welfare provision, highlighting the role of Latin American migrants in Spain as providers of formal and informal social protection on a transnational scale. It contributes to the debate on transnational social protection and transnational social inequalities from the perspective of welfare paradoxes and interpersonal pacts. Migrant women in Spain have become a resource for the provision of formal social protection through their employment as domestic care workers. Nevertheless, given that access to social rights in Spain depends on job stability and residency status, they have difficulties in accessing formal social protection themselves. This process constitutes a “welfare paradox,” based on the commodification and exclusion paradoxes, explained by structural factors such as the characteristics of the welfare regime (familiaristic model, with a tendency to hire domestic workers as caregivers into households), the migration regime (feminised and with a clear leaning towards Latin American women), and the economic landscape resulting from two systemic crises: the great recession of 2008 and the Covid‐19 pandemic. Interpersonal pacts, rooted in marriage/couple and intergenerational agreements, and their infringements, are analysed to explain the transnational and informal social protection strategies in the context of the “exclusion paradox” and the breach of the “welfare pact.” Our research draws on the exploitation of secondary data and multi‐sited, longitudinal fieldwork based on biographical interviews conducted with various members of transnational families in Spain and Ecuador (41 interviews).

Welfare Paradoxes and Interpersonal Pacts: Transnational Social Protection of Latin American Migrants in Spain

This article analyses the relationship between migration, care work, and welfare provision, highlighting the role of Latin American migrants in Spain as providers of formal and informal social protection on a transnational scale. It contributes to the debate on transnational social protection and transnational social inequalities from the perspective of welfare paradoxes and interpersonal pacts. Migrant women in Spain have become a resource for the provision of formal social protection through their employment as domestic care workers. Nevertheless, given that access to social rights in Spain depends on job stability and residency status, they have difficulties in accessing formal social protection themselves. This process constitutes a “welfare paradox,” based on the commodification and exclusion paradoxes, explained by structural factors such as the characteristics of the welfare regime (familiaristic model, with a tendency to hire domestic workers as caregivers into households), the migration regime (feminised and with a clear leaning towards Latin American women), and the economic landscape resulting from two systemic crises: the great recession of 2008 and the Covid‐19 pandemic. Interpersonal pacts, rooted in marriage/couple and intergenerational agreements, and their infringements, are analysed to explain the transnational and informal social protection strategies in the context of the “exclusion paradox” and the breach of the “welfare pact.” Our research draws on the exploitation of secondary data and multi‐sited, longitudinal fieldwork based on biographical interviews conducted with various members of transnational families in Spain and Ecuador (41 interviews).

Mobile phones, non-human agents at the service of assisted reproduction: monitoring and gendered dual allegiance

Abstract For sub-Saharan women enrolled in a protocol for assisted reproductive technology (ART), the use of mobile phones entails dual allegiance: toward the services of reproductive medicine and toward their transnational family. Indispensable for medically monitoring women’s reproductive bodies, the mobile phone enters the process for producing female gametes and contributes to the gender asymmetry typical of biomedicalized procreation. It is also used to maintain contacts with transnational family members who, from a distance, obtrude in the woman’s reproductive life. The use of mobile phones extends biomedical power over the woman’s body into her everyday life and the normative power of her transnational family into reproduction. Paradoxically, the mobile telephone allows collateral relatives to support the woman seeking reproduction assistance while also “hypermedicalizing” the woman’s daily life. Also paradoxically, this everyday companion is conductive to individual autonomy while also being used for new forms of surveillance and control. The data come from fieldwork conducted in the greater Paris area between 2011 and 2013 within a network of ART professionals and their patients.

Mediating Close Friendship Intimacy in Times of (Social) Distance

This article presents mediated intimacy in friendships as a necessary but difficult course of action to bridge physical absence between close friends. Following migration research to picture the mediation of intimacy of transnational family members, differences regarding the communicative behaviour, and specifically, the obligation to communicate contrasts distant friendships with translocal family interactions. Drawing on a German study on friendship communication, this paper asks the question how to derivate measures for profound friendship exchange in social distance, with regard to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Findings reveal communication media are definitely useful to keep up existing friendships but they also prevent meaningful friendship interaction. Accordingly, this paper contributes to the discussion of mediated communication and the production of mediated intimacy in friendships and highlights potential prospects to enhance physically distanced friendships.

Considering the Role of Money and Gifts in the (Re)-construction of Motherhood and Family Among Indonesian Transnational Female Domestic Workers

Most studies on female migrants as money earners claim that this new context of labor exhibits two distinct realms of either the commodification of love and care or the expression of care where money and emotion intertwine in maintaining family relationships and in creating reciprocity and exchange. I explore different modes of using money and gifts in addition to the major framework of economization of emotion and the emotionalization of money. I differentiate the gifts from money as it refers to non-cash gifts or in-kind gifts. This paper investigates other cultural contexts and social-political dynamics that possibly induce the construction of different roles of money and gifts. It assesses the kinship strategies and mechanisms female migrants, and their stayed-behind children develop in response to physical separation by sending money and gifts and their resistance to the state’s dominant version of the family and money. This paper elaborates how money and gifts connect to women’s identity as transnational mothers to redefine their parenting roles as main economic providers and their identity as transnational family members. It has some bearing on creating a new identity as women that might be not akin to the state’s gender politics and the politics of family as well as state maternalism. The study interrogates how sending and receiving money and gifts in a transnational family engenders transformation in the construction of the family and motherhood. I analyze how the practice of sending money and gifts challenges the state’s politics of traditional family and gender by examining how sending money and gifts frequently gains legitimacy with the migrant mothers’ claim of having a good family even though they do not adhere to traditional family norms.

Examining transnational care circulation trajectories within immobilizing regimes of migration: Implications for proximate care

In this paper we argue that the current political context of restrictionist migration policies is dramatically affecting people’s capacity to cross borders to engage in proximate care with their relatives, which is a central, yet often overlooked, feature of transnational care practices. We examine how the wider context of temporality, restrictive mobility, and heightened uncertainty about the future affect people’s ability to be mobile and to move back and forth for caregiving. In examining the wellbeing effects of such restrictions, we highlight their variable impact depending on factors such as socio-economic positioning, life-course stage and health. The first sections of the paper present the care circulation framework and the particular meaning and function of proximate forms of care, as well as the main categories of care-related mobility that support this. We illustrate the dynamics and challenges faced by transnational family members, who engage in these care-related mobilities, through three vignettes involving care circulation between India and the UK, China and Australia, and Morocco and Belgium. In the final section, we discuss our vignettes in relation to the political, physical, social and time dimensions of current regimes of mobility that impact on care-related mobilities. We argue that the regimes of mobility that currently govern care-related mobilities are best understood as ‘immobilizing regimes’ with important and undervalued implications for ontological security and wellbeing.

Family-mediated migration infrastructure: Chinese international students and parents navigating (im)mobilities during the COVID-19 pandemic

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated responses such as border closure, lockdown measures and flight curtailment have severely disrupted transnational infrastructures that sustain, channel, organize and condition international migration. This infrastructural disruption has led to the double exclusion of temporary migrants from both sending and host societies. In this context, we explore how Chinese international students in the United Kingdom and their parents in China navigate transnational (im)mobilities during the pandemic. In doing so, we develop the conceptualization of “family-mediated migration infrastructure” to elucidate the role played by transnational family relationships in brokering information, mobilizing resources, and coordinating disjointed acts of institutional players in order to sustain transnational (im)mobility. We also reveal a distinctive emotional double-bind in the process of family-mediated infrastructuring, which requires members of transnational families to strategically perform emotional engagement and detachment in complex ways. Our findings highlight the functional resilience and emotional vulnerability of family-mediated transnational migration infrastructure, and render visible the intimate fabrics that contribute to sustaining transnationalism during the pandemic.

Procesos de migración y familias transnacionales de la Sierra Queretana, México

La Sierra Queretana, en el centro de México, incluye dos municipios: Amealco de Bonfil y Huimilpan; en ambos, la migración hacia los Estados Unidos es un fenómeno frecuente que ha modificado paulatinamente la forma de organización de las familias. El análisis de la migración se realiza tomando en cuenta al grupo familiar y los cambios en la división sexo-genérica del trabajo y los efectos económicos y culturales que conlleva. El artículo expone las condiciones de vida de los grupos en familias transnacionales, en particular de las mujeres y los parientes que no migran; el desarrollo de emprendimientos y empresas familiares como alternativas posibles del uso de remesas. La pregunta de investigación que se planteó fue conocer las estrategias de supervivencia de las familias transnacionales en relación con los aspectos de cuidado, compromiso y reciprocidad. La metodología es de orientación cualitativa, hermenéutica y de fenomenología; se incluyó una revisión documental y se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas. Como técnicas para la triangulación, se contrastaron resultados de entrevistas y se utilizó la observación no participante. El trabajo de campo se realizó durante los veranos de 2018 y 2019. Se realizaron diecisiete entrevistas a miembros de familias transnacionales y cinco a funcionarios de los municipios estudiados, de la oficina nacional de empleo y una organización civil de apoyo al migrante. Entre los principales resultados se encuentra que las mujeres que no migran enfrentan nuevas condiciones económicas que les implican romper con los esquemas tradicionales de género, aunque la construcción subjetiva de un nuevo rol de género es paulatina, no se asume de manera inmediata; muchas mujeres que no migran no logran romper los roles asignados en la esfera privada ya que las nuevas condiciones de vida que enfrentan no las desligan de su condición de género en la familia, pero al mismo tiempo enfrentan responsabilidades como jefas de familia. Se percibe como una doble jornada laboral que sin embargo no las enfrenta con los miembros de la familia extensa. Los emprendimientos llevados a cabo involucran estrategias de negocios en red que son posibles gracias a las familias extensas y a los vínculos entre los migrantes. El éxito o fracaso de los mismos es percibido no solo como una consecuencia del mercado sino también en relación con la posibilidad de asegurar el envío de remesas.

Introduction to the Special Issue: “Transnational Family Care ‘On Hold’? Intergenerational Relationships and Obligations in the Context of Immobility Regimes”

This special issue explores how members of transnational families manage their intergenerational care obligations in the context of increasing restrictions to cross–border mobility. We ask: How do ...

Attachment, Psychological Wellbeing, and Educational Development among Child Members of Transnational Families.

The current research investigated attachment styles, psychological wellbeing, and academic development among children in transnational family arrangements in Zimbabwe. Purposive sampling was employed to select 57 children in transnational family arrangements and 41 children in conventional two-parent households aged between 8 and 14 years. Attachment Style Classification Questionnaire for latency-age children, Stirling Children's Well-being Scale, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, and Questionnaire for Evaluation of Development and Behavior were applied. The results revealed that there were no significant differences in attachment styles, conduct problems, hyperactivity, and academic development between the transnational and conventional family groups. Social desirability and prosocial behavior were significantly lower in the transnational group. Children with both parents as migrants had significantly lower scores for psychological wellbeing and higher scores for emotional symptoms and literacy problems than children with one migrant parent or conventional families. There was no difference in attachment styles and academic development, which may be a reflection of the strength of the extended family in substituting parental care. However, children in transnational family arrangements scored poorly on the prosocial subscale of psychological wellbeing, which is associated with family cohesion. Parental migration negatively impacts family cohesion, especially when both parents migrate. When both parents migrate, the children exhibited emotional symptoms, literacy problems, poor prosocial behaviors, and poor psychological wellbeing because children receive reduced social support. This study reveals that a child's age at the parent's departure, family cohesion, and economic security are integral to ensuring the wellbeing of children in transnational family arrangements.

Welfare beyond Borders: Filipino Transnational Families’ Informal Social Protection Strategies

Remittances and caregiving arrangements are among the most significant practices of informal social protection against social risks and exclusion among transnational families. This article argues that remittances can provide social protection in cases where formal welfare services do not reach the citizens properly. Furthermore, it illustrates how members of Filipino transnational families can create sustainable informal social protection and utilise it long-term. The transnational practices are analysed to show how migrant capital, particularly the intersection of economic and social capital (Bourdieu, 1986), is transferred to informal social protection through meaningful reciprocity between the senders and recipients of remittances. Successful allocation of remittances and negotiation of care arrangements depend on the realisation of reciprocity and its social context, such as life circumstances, moral obligations and migrants’ personal goals for migration. The data draw on observations and 41 qualitative interviews conducted both in Finland and in the Philippines.

Elastic carework: the cost and contradictions of mobile caregiving in a transnational household

ABSTRACT This paper examines the pivotal role of digital communication technologies in the provision of transnational caregiving among geographically separated family members. Particularly, it examines the consequences of mobile device use in facilitating the circulation and consumption of money and consumer goods among 21 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Melbourne, Australia, and their left-behind family members in the Philippines. By deploying a mediated mobilities lens in analysing the data drawn upon in-depth interviews, photo elicitation, and field notetaking, I coin the term ‘elastic carework’ to articulate the contradictory outcomes of mobile caregiving at a distance as shaped by the entanglement of social structures and technological infrastructures. On the one hand, caregiving at a distance enables transnational family members to enact affective exchanges, fulfil obligations and cement intimate ties. On the other hand, it can also become a source of frustration and unsettling feelings, which are often dealt with personalised tactics. Ultimately, this paper provides a vantage point in re-thinking the performance, embodiment and negotiation of a family-based and networked caregiving at a distance in the age of global migration.

“Are we still a family?” The perspective from Romanian transnational families

In 2015 the Romanian anthropologist Vintila Mihailescu wrote about the practice of migration in the case of the Romanian society, showing how it is ultimately deeply rooted, before 1989, in the communist period. Under the pressure of internal migration from villages to cities, the traditional Romanian family suffered a major structural transformation. According to the Romanian anthropologist, the diffuse family – household, as he calls it, seems to be “the grandmother” of the transnational family. The current practices of transnational families were formed based on these roots, of the “diffuse” family. Starting from the idea of Mihailescu, the aim of this articleis to investigate the main (re)structures of the kinship practices in the Romanian society under the impact of external migration after 1989. One of the findings of the study shows that in the Romanian traditional society, preserving kinship cohesion meant a series of obligations and liabilities that were often transmitted from one generation to another without being questioned. They basically constituted and maintained the channel of communication between family members. The members of transnational families have absorbed these traditional structures, weaving over new formulas to adapt family practices(Morgan: 2011) to the specificity of transnational living, reformulating at the same time the traditional rules of kinship and adapting them to the new way of living. The study is based on materials derived from a qualitative research in five communities— three in Romania and two abroad.

Cook it, eat it, Skype it: Mobile media use in re-staging intimate culinary practices among transnational families

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.

Imagination as a key factor in LMLS in transnational families

Abstract This article argues that imagination plays a key role in whether and how members of transnational families individually and collectively maintain or relinquish their heritage languages and adopt other languages as part of their multilingual repertoires. Imagination is defined here as the vision of where and what one might be or become at some future point in time. We base our argument on linguistic ethnography over two decades with transnational families of Chinese ethnic origin in the UK. Families that seem to have kept their heritage languages and families that have given them up were invited to talk about where, what and how they would see themselves in ten years’ time, and a selection of them are subsequently interviewed and observed after the ten-year period. Their responses are analysed in terms of their constructed experiences, environments and visions of the future; their perceptions and imaginations of different places and cultures; key moments in re-evaluation, or re-imagining, that led to major behavioural changes; and self-evaluation of their imaginations. Particular attention is given to the dynamics of differences and tensions between the imaginations of individuals of the same families, as well as changes to the imaginations over time. Theoretical and methodological implications of studying imagination as a key factor for language maintenance and language shift, and for bilingualism research generally, are discussed.