Transnational families, migration and the circulation of care : understanding mobility and absence in family life / edited by Loretta Baldassar and Laura Merla.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Baldassar, Loretta, 1965- editor.

Merla, Laura, editor.

Series:

Transnationalism. Routledge research in transnationalism ; 29.

Routledge research in transnationalism ; 29

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Intercountry marriage.

Families.

Emigration and immigration.

Globalization--Social aspects.

Globalization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (321 pages) : illustrations.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York, N.Y. : Routledge, 2014.

Summary:

Without denying the difficulties that confront migrants and their distant kin, this volume highlights the agency of family members in transnational processes of care, in an effort to acknowledge the transnational family as an increasingly common family form and to question the predominantly negative conceptualisations of this type of family. It re-conceptualises transnational care as a set of activities that circulates between home and host countries - across generations - and fluctuates over the life course, going beyond a focus on mother-child relationships to include multidirectional exchanges across generations and between genders. It highlights, in particular, how the sense of belonging in transnational families is sustained by the reciprocal, though uneven, exchange of caregiving, which binds members together in intergenerational networks of reciprocity and obligation, love and trust that are simultaneously fraught with tension, contest and relations of unequal power. The chapters that make up this volume cover a rich array of ethnographic case studies including analyses of transnational families who circulate care between developing nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia to wealthier nations in North America, Europe and Australia. There are also examples of intra- and extra- European, Australian and North American migration, which involve the mobility of both the unskilled and working class as well as the skilled middle and aspirational classes.

Contents:

part A. Conceptualising care circulation

part B. Care circulation : theoretical and empirical considerations

part C. Gendered care circuits : exploring absence beyond mother-child dyads

part D. The mobilities of care as a resource within and beyond transnational families.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-203-07753-9

1-135-13224-0

1-138-95293-1

1-135-13225-9

9780203077535

OCLC:

858231232