Transnational Lives Research Articles

Sensory Dislocation and Transnational Ties: Exploring the Forced Immobility of Older Russian Speakers in Finland Amidst COVID‐19 Restrictions

ABSTRACTThe COVID‐19 travel restrictions were especially distressing for migrants, whose transnational lifestyles and networks often rely on travelling, even in older age. Drawing on 20 interviews, this study analyses the effect of COVID restrictions on the transnational lives of older Russian migrants in Finland. The study highlights the importance of physical co‐presence in transnational relationships, showing that older migrants suffered from ‘sensory disconnection’ caused by forced immobility. In Finland, participants typically maintained narrow social circles dominated by kin relations. Amidst the pandemic, they sought comfort through nature and gardening, sensory‐rich practices akin to Soviet‐era dacha practices. Yet, the inability to reconnect physically with their country of origin, particularly for practices such as visits to cemeteries, emerged as a substantial source of emotional distress. Connection with deceased kin was an integral part of their transnational network. The findings suggest that maintaining transnational visits is key to the well‐being of many older migrants.

Thinking citizenship through lived experiences of highly skilled migrants in Budapest

This study aims to understand and explain the concept of citizenship by analyzing the lived experiences of highly skilled migrants reflecting on their everyday transnational lives in the urban setting of Budapest. Based on the discourse analysis of 30 semi-structured interviews conducted in Budapest in the Fall of 2022, the study thinks through lived citizenship experiences to understand how and why these experiences matter for the formation of subjective citizenship understanding. This study suggests that the concept of lived citizenship embodies a complex narrative of everyday socio-economic, socio-cultural, and emotional experiences that go beyond what the legal status depicts. Citizenship experiences of highly skilled migrants present a process of negotiating cultural and moral cosmopolitanism with constructive patriotism in everyday lives in the urban context. The study advances the thinking on the foundation, manifestations, and operationalization of lived citizenship as experiences of belonging and coexistence, presenting a unique contribution to the production of knowledge on highly skilled migration in Hungary. This article proposes that citizenship entails a complex relational dimension and includes a life-long learning process with continual meaning-making through life experiences that transcends the consequences of the legal status within a given nation-state.

Transnational lives interrupted: The Canadian state and Indian international student experiences during the COVID‐19 pandemic

AbstractCanada has emerged as a major education destination for international students from across the world. International students are understood to significantly contribute towards the labour market and economic growth of Canada including the higher education sector that has come to financially rely on international students. India has emerged as the largest source of international students to Canada in recent years making them a significant category of migrants impacted by the covid‐19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown measures implemented by the Canadian state. This paper looks at the experiences of Indian international students already in Canada and prospective students in India planning to pursue their studies in Canada. The pandemic delayed international education plans for many students in India while causing significant disruption to the studies, employment, and living arrangements of international students in Canada. Such disruptions created considerable uncertainty over their financial situation including meeting various eligibility requirements for work permit after graduation. This paper reveals the deeply embodied and personalised consequences for students in the face of state responses to balancing pandemic control and retaining financial and economic contribution during the pandemic.

Gig work in transnational spaces: infrastructures of migration and the simultaneous lives of migrants in the gig economy

ABSTRACT This article explores how platform-mediated gig work is entangled in the migration process across transnational, national and local scales. Drawing on the concepts of simultaneity and migration infrastructure from critical transnational migration studies as well as qualitative interviews with migrants, the analysis focuses on the figures of three migrant gig workers from both EU and non-EU countries to elucidate two matters. First, we analyse how different forms of citizenship produce different ways of responding to the migration infrastructure that results in frictions and/or smoothness across different times and spaces in the migration process. Second, we analyse how migrants who perform platform-mediated gig work on a local scale in Copenhagen, Denmark, establish particular transnational lives. Thus, this article contributes a timely transnational perspective on the relationship between the growing gig economy and migration.

Recipe for Identity

The placement of recipes in a food memoir serves the unique function of contextualising a life story against culture, tradition, and history. They serve as a form of self-expression that looks at life in its entirety through an amalgamation of the material and abstract aspects of existence. For women in the diaspora, recipes not only enable them to maintain a link to the homeland through the preservation and perpetuation of foodways but also serve as a medium to adapt to the new country. Bengali-American historian and writer Chitrita Banerji’s A Taste of My Life: A Memoir in Essays and Recipes (2021) is structured as a three-course meal and uses recipes to frame liminal moments of existence. The food memoir traces the arc of Banerji’s life over seven decades—from her childhood in India, to her student life in the US, followed by married life in Bangladesh and culminates with her mature years spent dividing her time between the US and India. Banerji reconstructs her life through the food that has defined her with the recipes providing a structure for her transnational life that spans years and continents; they provide unity and coherence across space and time. This paper argues that the inclusion of recipes helps Banerji in constructing an identity that takes the whole gamut of her experiences into account. The recipes show her journey from dislocation to relocation and provide the scaffolding for the construction of a self that is reconciled and empowered. Banerji’s recipes articulate the way in which food anchors her, provides the impetus for her growth and gives her the means to reflect on life with a certain resolve tempered with a hint of nostalgia. Through her narrative we see how a recipe borrows as well as adapts, preserves as well as modifies. There is replication as well as recreation in a recipe, which is similar to a diaspora individual balancing assimilation with adaptation. Every recipe reveals a new facet of her identity and is crucial in her understanding of the self in relation to others.

National Identity in Transnational Life: The Case of Dual Education of Indonesian Migrant Children in Sabah, East Malaysia

Everyone everywhere has the right to education, including migrant children living transnational lives. The practice of transnational life in dual education for Indonesian migrant children is the main focus of this research. As such, this article examines the extent of recruitment, learning processes, outcomes and looks at the different perceptions between two educational institutions: Community Learning Centre Indonesia (CLCI) and Humana Child Aid Society Sabah (HCASS). The research method used was phenomenological qualitative, focusing on Terusan 2 Estate and Sapi 2 Estate, Sandakan District, Sabah, East Malaysia. Interviews were conducted with 25 respondents comprising teachers, students and policymakers of migrant children’s education in Sabah. Observation and documentary analysis were also conducted to strengthen the research. The research findings show prominent differences between the CLCI and HCASS education systems regarding recruitment, processes and learning outcomes. In addition, the findings also explored transnational life practices in education with two different systems. This is because one student subject received very different learning curriculum systems: Indonesia and Malaysia. Students, unconsciously or consciously, practice “code-swiching” behaviour in their interactions with their environment. However, support from the Indonesian government offers some level of national identity inculcation for students in transnational life. In addition, support from the Malaysian government and the oil palm plantations company made the teaching practice run conductively with good facilities and respectful solidarity based on universal peace. Implementing the right to education means providing equal opportunities for all migrant children to access and thrive in higher-quality schools so that, in the future, they can contribute to international life.

Mothering in liminality: Toward a definition of third culture parenting

AbstractObjectiveThis study proposes a preliminary definition of third culture parenting drawn from the experiences of relatively privileged expat mothers who raise their children outside of their passport country.BackgroundA vast literature examining third culture kids (TCKs) in the context of expatriate postings exists, as does research on parenting styles among middle‐class, U.S. families; however, there is little scholarship exploring where these intersect: an emerging style of third culture parenting.MethodThis gap was explored through an inductive, qualitative analysis of data collected from 11 in‐depth interviews with middle‐class mothers who were all married and globally mobile because of their husbands' work. In total, these families lived in 17 countries.ResultsRespondents reflected on the challenges and opportunities of parenting while suspended in a liminal space between geographic locations and cultural contexts.ConclusionThis article examines several paradoxes that emerged in the analysis: juggling intensive parenting with children's increased independence, navigating family dynamics that are both insular and egalitarian, and creating a sense of belonging in mobility. Analysis of these paradoxes of mothering in liminality is significant if the transnational lives of expatriate families are harbingers of the kinds of identities and family relations that are becoming commonplace in a mobile world.ImplicationsThe phenomenon of TCKs is well documented in the scholarship, but it must also be understood in relation to an emerging style of third culture parenting among expatriate families, which may inform therapeutic interventions aimed at these families.

Unravelling the tensions: exploring the interplay of paid care work, family obligations, and transnational care among Zimbabwean migrant care workers in the UK

ABSTRACT An increasing number of studies have examined the impact of migration on reconciling familial care obligations with demanding paid care work. However, much of this research focuses on women who employ migrant care workers and ignores the experiences of migrant care workers balancing their jobs with their own familial responsibilities. As a result, little is known about how migrant care workers navigate local contexts, form families, and manage work and childcare in destination countries while maintaining commitments at home. This paper explores the family dynamics and transnational lives of Zimbabwean migrant care workers in the UK. It draws on qualitative interviews with 10 participants to elaborate on the additional challenges they face in reconciling paid care work with localized and transnational family care. The analysis highlights that migrant workers must simultaneously respond to the care demands of their families and employers, often causing tensions as gendered care expectations are challenged. To manage these difficulties in balancing work and family, Zimbabwean care workers employ various strategies that sometimes strain familial relationships. This study provides insight into the intersection of migrant care workers’ paid labour and familial care obligations across borders.

Encountering infrastructural interruptions and maintaining transnational lives amongst foreigners in China

ABSTRACT Drawing on in-depth biographical interviews with foreign scholars in China (hereafter ‘FSC’), this paper examines the impact of various infrastructural interruptions on the transnational lives of mobile individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how the labour of maintenance and resourceful quick-fixes employed by FSC constitute infrastructuring strategies in times of isolation and uncertainty. Specifically, the paper first asks how specific COVID-19-induced infrastructural barriers, such as tightened visa policies, mandatory PCR testing for border crossing, and suspended flights, intersect with the (im)mobility experiences and trajectories of FSC. Second, the paper investigates how these individuals navigate and cope with infrastructural glitches by fashioning a set of infrastructuring strategies to maintain transnational lives within the pandemic context. In doing so, this paper develops a deeper understanding of not only the generative but also destructive capacities of infrastructural processes in terms of their transformative effects on migrant identities, aspirations and lived experiences, further revealing the fragility, incompleteness and situationality embedded in migration infrastructures. More critically, this paper theorises how infrastructural interruptions constitute the necessary social-temporal conditions in which individuals’ infrastructuring strategies emerge through acts of waiting, adaptation and maintenance.

삼가면서 미래를 꿈꾸는 아이들: 난민 청소년의 이주 경험에 대한 현상학적 연구

This study set out to explore what kind of experiences refugee adolescents had in their migration process to South Korea and how they adjusted and led a life in the country. There were total six components in the essential meanings of refugee adolescents' migration experiences: experiences of family disorganization and reunion with anxiety and trauma, sense of loss and nostalgia for the mother country, stigma, conflicts in relationships, recognition and transnational life. They were alienated the moment they left their mother countries, experiencing exclusion in the host country and starting to lead a life of not being able to make a complete entrance into the host society and move out of it. They were worn out, living in the name of "refugees”, but they refused to cave in and had hopes for their careful expectation that their tomorrow would be better than their today as "dreaming cautiously of their future.” The study promoted the understanding of their lives and dreams as refugees through their own "voices” not exposed in the South Korean society and proposed the possibilities of social welfare support measures for refugee adolescents based on them.

Rhizomic communication practices bridging international students and the host society and beyond

AbstractEvidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted international student communities while reflecting wider societal inequalities. This study in the Finnish context examined international students’ experiences of the published national crisis communication and media usage during the first year of the pandemic. Using the national COVID-19 crisis communication practices as an example, we examined what kinds of strategies the international students deployed to access information in this non-English-speaking country and how they perceived the information communicated. Theoretically, we based the analysis on the theories of crisis communication and information inequality, which identify communication practices, such as language choice, that differentiate groups of people and impact their health outcomes. These are combined with rhizomic understanding, as reported by Deleuze and Guattari (1988/2020), of accessing media, and extended it to a mobile group of people (international students) living transnational lives. The data included interviews with international students studying at Finnish universities. The findings show that the students deployed five interlinked strategies to access information during the COVID-19 pandemic that highlight the heterogeneity of information and its usage, global asynchronousness of pandemic paths, and temporal changes in approaching information.

Mixed Japanese identities and multiculturalism

In this article, we unpack how ideologies of ethnonationalism and multiculturalism in the Australian and Japanese contexts present tensions in self-identity and national belonging for youth of mixed Japanese and Australian background. With the aim of furthering our understanding of multiculturalism and its place in Australia, we investigate the complex ways in which these individuals are positioned in-between such ostensibly antithetical ideologies in their transnational lives to provide unique insight into a little studied community in Australia. To do so, we draw on interview data conducted with youth aged 18 to 25 who live in Australia or Japan and are the child of one ethnically Japanese and non-Japanese parent. Our findings demonstrate that multiculturalism in Australia encourages a sense of belonging and community by attributing meaning towards the ubiquity of ethnic, racial and cultural differences in urban Australian spaces. However, feelings of inclusivity or belongingness which derive from a sense of multiculturalism are often overshadowed by discourses of ethnonationalism, such as ‘whiteness’ or ‘Japaneseness’, which contradict and unsettle their mixed identities as people of Japanese and Australian backgrounds.

Monikielisen toimijuuden tukeminen koulun toimintayhteisössä

This chapter discusses multilingual agency and its construction in the school. Regarding multilingualism, we describe five discursive spaces that organize interaction in the communities of practice: monolingualism, parallel monolingualism, situational multilingualism, institutional multilingualism, and a hybrid space with new ethnicities. The teacher’s actions and the chosen pedagogical approach transform the discursive and spatial norms; transforming norms and practices go hand in hand. The teacher can facilitate individual students in becoming autonomous agents, in interaction with the community. Developing multilingual agency requires student reflection, and dynamic feedback provided by the teacher. Including pupils with different backgrounds in learning is crucial in times of transnational lives. Thus, the practices of the school communities must be grounded in social justice and equity. Translanguaging and linguistically responsive pedagogies offer inquiry-based practices for inclusive language education that supports the pupils’ multilingual selves and language ownership.

Between obligations and aspirations: unaccompanied immigrant teen workers’ transnational lives and imagined futures

ABSTRACT Relying on ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with undocumented Latinx young adults (18–31) who arrived in Los Angeles, California, as unaccompanied minors (11–17), this study examines immigrant youth workers’ migration motives, their transnational ties and transnationalism’s effect on their imagined futures. Findings show that, in the context of structural and community violence and poverty, Central American and Mexican youth migrate alone at young ages, in part to fulfill moral obligations to provide financial and emotional support within networks of care for the families they eventually leave behind. For many, left-behind family’s needs increase as parents and siblings age into new life stages. Unmarried transnational youth workers are especially likely to shoulder moral obligations. This is while they transition into young adulthood in the US and weigh their own prospects for education and occupational mobility in Los Angeles or their home communities. Maintaining moral obligations established in adolescence throughout the transition into young adulthood can cause youth to reimagine futures to include the possibility of staying and other alternatives. This research offers important insights into the changing nature of transnational families, unaccompanied minors’ coming of age, and the lives of migrant youth workers in the US.

The (big) role of family constellations in return migration and transnationalism

PurposeThe Albanian migration has always reflected a family character, be that before 1945 when Albania was not yet completely isolated, as well as after 1990 when borders were reopened. This feature characterized all types of movement, internal or international, permanent or seasonal migration, return migration or transnational movements and remigration. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of the family as a very important factor in making decisions regarding migration and answering questions from why to how to migrate, from when to where, whom to ask for help or how to invest remittances.Design/methodology/approachBased on the case study of a rural area in Northern Albania, the Administrative Unit of Dajç, this paper explores in detail the roles of family and kinship on decisions regarding return migration, the re-adjustment process, remigration or transnational life.FindingsBy exploring the role of the family context in remigration and vice-versa, the paper reflects that the family biography – including the lifestyle, plans for the future or expectations – has changed due to previous migration experiences or challenges and difficulties when returning to the home country.Originality/valueIt demonstrates how individual decisions to migrate or to “return home” are negotiated and supported within families making transnational life a family project. The paper adopts a new approach in the Albanian Migration Studies, which may be implied on broader areas for further research in the future.

Fraudulent Families? Investigating the Role of Paperwork in the Assessment of Refugees’ Family Reunification in Belgium

Current European directives indicate that refugees must be afforded more leniency when certifying the family relationships in family visa applications. However, our research—based on an in-depth thematic analysis of a sample of proceedings of the Belgian Council for Alien Law Litigation (2015–2019)—shows that even when refugee families provide documentary evidence about family ties and identity, this is often used against them. Building on studies on the bureaucratic culture of disbelief/suspicion, we illustrate that refusals are often based on discretionary decisions not to further investigate the application, as families allegedly committed fraud by presenting fake or discrepant proofs, while discrepancies may well emerge from the complexity of refugees’ transnational lives and bureaucratic experiences.

Introduction to Special Issue: Family Migration in Times of Crisis

Abstract This introduction to the Special Issue on Family Migration in Times of Crisis explains why the concept of crisis is a useful prism to uncover new insights into family migration. It recognizes the multivalent character of crises and their tendency to merge and accumulate into what has been called ‘polycrisis’. It recognises critical perspectives on the concept of ‘crisis’, that it represents interpretations of events rather than events themselves and that crises are socially constructed and narrated. Crises present new risks and challenges for migrants and their families. The intersection of the temporalities of crisis with those of family migration can exacerbate periods of separation as well as stress and anxiety about how the family can reunify. The papers in this Special Issue, although they focus on diverse crises and use different approaches and methodologies, reveal some common themes. Crises ‘cascade’ and their impact are often greatest on more marginalized populations. They tend to expose and exacerbate existing inequalities, throwing them into sharper relief. Governments often respond to crises by reverting to more conventional norms of family life. The fragility of transnational life and its dependence on government approval are highlighted, as even the relatively privileged may find rights of movement are curtailed, although they may also more easily find solutions. Migrants and their families respond to crises by seeking to mitigate or avoid separation, and new associations, political contestations, and acts of solidarity may emerge, although their durability, given that interests can diverge over time and crises subside, is unclear.

Historical Review of Professional Football Migration Trends from Uganda in the Era of Liberalized Sport Labour Migration, 1964-2022

Elite football migration from Africa has drawn much scholarly attention. The social value attached to the ostensibly fortunate players crossing borders has grown expansively in the continent. Still, little empirical research is available on East African football. To lay the foundations to study Ugandan footballers’ transnational lives, history, and migration trajectory, a historical review of Uganda’s football migration trends is presented. Until 1962, Ugandan sports were under the British influence and control, athlete movement was restricted, football structures were flimsy, and the economy was in dismay. With professionalization, globalization, commercialization of sports, as well as the free movement of professional athletes endorsed by the 1995 Bosman Ruling, ushered in a new era of liberalized sport labour migration. Ugandan footballers were among those who participated in this phenomenon, sometimes using other African football leagues as a springboard to their desired destinations. While football migration in the early years was dominated by men, by the early 2000s women footballers also started departing, albeit at a slower pace and following distinct migration trajectories to their male counterparts. Moreover, Ugandan footballers do not follow a predictable or consistent migration patterns, exposing the need for indepth research into the unique migration trajectories and life histories.

Brahmaputraka Chheuchhau: Portrayal of the Indian Nepali Diasporic Life

This article analyses how Indian Nepali writer Lil Bahadur Chhetri’s novel Brahmaputraka Chheuchhau [Alongside the Brahmaputra] depicts the transnational life of the Nepali Diaspora in India. The analysis of the novel is based on the theory of diaspora and its literature discussed by Robin Cohen, James Clifford and Janine Dahinden. The analysis focuses on the setting, characterization, the migrants’ relation with the hostland mainstream, Nepali cultural practices and the role of the migrants in the development of the land of arrival. It finally presents the common features of the Nepali Diaspora in Assam, India. The discussion concludes that the novel is a good example of Nepali diasporic literature. It is hoped that this article can be a sample for the analysis of other works of Nepali diasporic creations, especially the works of fiction.

Belonging here and there: How social media affect the transnational lives of Spaniards in Iceland

Following the economic crisis of 2008–2014, the number of Spaniards in Iceland has quintupled. This study explores how young, highly qualified Spanish migrants in Iceland adopt social media to become embedded in Iceland and to maintain relationships in Spain, and how it affects their sense of belonging. For this aim, semi-structured interviews were held in 2017–2018 with 29 Spaniards residing in Iceland, and their personal networks were analyzed. We found that migrants who felt they belonged to both Spain and Iceland had more social relationships in Iceland and used more social media platforms to sustain their local and transnational networks compared with migrants who felt they belonged nowhere or only in Spain. Not only did they extend their repertoires with new social media, they also adapted how they used platforms to the media environment in Iceland. In this way, social media facilitated a sense of local and transnational belonging.