Relative distance : kinship, migration, and Christianity between Kenya and the United Kingdom / Leslie Fesenmyer, University of Birmingham.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fesenmyer, Leslie E. (Leslie Elyse), author.

Series:

The international African library ; 71

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Families--Kenya--History--20th century.

Families.

Immigrant families--Kenya.

Immigrant families.

Immigrant families--Great Britain.

Transnationalism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 231 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Summary:

The socio-economic and political uncertainties of Kenya in the 1990s jeopardised what many saw as the promises of modernity. An increasing number of Kenyans migrated, many to Britain, a country that felt familiar from Kenyan history. Based on extensive fieldwork in Kenya and the United Kingdom, Leslie Fesenmyer's work provides a rich, historically nuanced study of the kinship dilemmas that underlie transnational migration and explores the dynamic relationship between those who migrate and those who stay behind. Challenging a focus on changing modes of economic production, 'push-pull' factors, and globalisation as drivers of familial change, she analyses everyday trans-national family life. Relative Distance shows how quotidian interactions, exchanges, and practices transform kinship on a local and global scale. Through the prism of intergenerational care, Fesenmyer reveals that the question of who is responsible for whom is not only a familial matter but is at the heart of relations between individuals, societies, and states.

Contents:

Securing the future: family, livelihoods, and mobility

Aspirations, obligations, and imagination in family migration

The making of 'migrants'

Kinship dilemmas: negotiating relatedness across space

Weddings as transnational household rituals: marriage and other intimate relations

Change and continuity: the social reproduction of families between Kenya and the United Kingdom.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 26 Jun 2023).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9781009335096 (ebook)

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.