Fleeting joy,divergent expectations and reconfigured intimacies: The visits home of Filipino migrant care workers in Singapore

For Filipino migrant care workers in Singapore, visits home are highly anticipated and longed for, but only as long as they remain brief. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research, this paper examines such visits as emotionally complex events that bring intense joy as migrants reunite with dispersed family members, but also reveal divergent expectations and feelings of loss and betrayal. These experiences are especially felt among migrant women given the gendered constructions of their migration journeys that demand strenuous relational work on their visits and far beyond. Visits home, nevertheless, are important moments through which migrant care workers re-orient their priorities and aspirations as migrants and as women over time, often leading to prolongations of their ‘temporary’ absences. The paper further examines how migrant care workers, many of whom are on temporary work contracts in Singapore, fear and anticipate the moment when short visits ultimately become permanent returns.     

Navigating return: the gendered geographies of skilled return migration to Ghana

In this article, I extend the literature on return migration by exploring the gendered mechanisms of return for highly skilled Ghanaian migrants. Drawing on interviews with Ghanaian women and men who returned in their prime productive years, I examine their decision‐making, the strategies they implement and the challenges they negotiate in the process. While the decision to return was straightforward, the actual processes circumscribing it contained tensions and compromises that involved renegotiations of gender identities, roles and norms, which themselves intersected with class differences. The empirical analyses emphasize how skilled migrants capitalize on their class status, social networks and transnational activities as means not only to return but also, for some, to mitigate the impacts of separation for themselves and their families as they seek to accomplish specific goals.     

‘A life path different from one of labour in the Gulf’: Ongoing mobility among Nepali labour migrants in Qatar and their families

Labour migration is commonly attached to the idea of a ‘better’ future for the migrants and their families, but there is less emphasis on how this does not materialize for many labour migrants. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among Nepalis working in Qatar and select families in Nepal, this article focuses on the intergenerational migration cycle or migration as open-ended and ongoing across generations. While the Gulf migration scholarship has mostly concentrated on low-skilled workers, I draw on the cases of migrants across different skill/income levels to show how the migrants’ and/or families’ desires for ‘ongoing mobility’ to the Gulf or the West panned out differently. I argue that despite wanting a different and better life path for the future generation, one unlike theirs of labour in the Gulf, many Gulf migrants are unable to meet these familial expectations; rather, migration histories repeat in a continual quest to overcome economic constraints.     

Beyond development impact: gender and care in the Pacific Seasonal Worker Programme

ABSTRACT

Close to 17,320 workers participate in the Seasonal Worker Programme, a temporary migration scheme between Australia and selected island countries in the Pacific. This article looks at the ways in which seasonal migration affects the social lives of migrants from Tonga and Vanuatu, in their households and communities. It explores the various barriers that women face as a result of this scheme, highlighting, in particular, imbalances in the gendered division of labour caused by the absence of males due to migration. It argues that focusing solely on the economic development discourse of seasonal labour programmes is problematic because it fails to take into account the normative dynamics and general context of seasonal workers. Such an approach also fails to take into consideration the rights of migrants to live with their families, and not to have to make choices that are shaped by physical separation from their families and communities. The article concludes with recommendations for policy reform that address the existing gender inequalities of seasonal worker programmes in the Pacific by putting work, care, and the everyday maintenance of the seasonal worker household at the centre of its analysis.     

Privileged Japanese transnational families in Hawaii as lifestyle migrants

This study of privileged Japanese families in Hawaii revisits the claim that East Asian transnational families relocate overseas either to improve their well‐being or to enhance their status through their children's international education. Existing scholarship has focused mainly on the second pattern of status‐seeking migration, conceptualized as ‘education migration’. By employing Benson and O'Reilly's concept of ‘lifestyle migration’, I consider the less widely studied case of migration strategies designed to increase well‐being. The central difference between the two types of migrants lies in the way that migrant women construct their gendered identity through their transnational split‐household arrangement – a freer self (lifestyle migrants) or a sacrificial self (education migrants). In conclusion, I call for further research on this neglected topic and propose an important dimension to facilitate lifestyle migration, gender.     

Between two families: the social meaning of remittances for Vietnamese marriage migrants in Singapore

Scholars who have applied transnational perspectives to studies of migration and remittances have called for a move beyond the developmentalist approach to accommodate an expanded understanding of the social meanings of remittances. Researchers working in Asia have begun to view the remittances of money, gifts and services that labour migrants send to their families as transnational ‘acts of recognition’, as an enactment of gendered roles and identities, and as a component of the social practices that create the ties that bind migrants to their ‘home’ countries. In this article, we depart from the more common focus on remittance behaviour among labour migrants and turn instead to examine how, as marriage migrants, Vietnamese women generate and confer meaning on the remittances they send. First, from the women's viewpoint, we discuss the extent to which expectations vested in being able to generate remittances for the natal family by marrying a Singaporean man not only translate into motivation for marriage migration but also shape the parameters of the marriage. Second, we show how sending remittances are significant to the women as ‘acts of recognition’ in the construction of gendered identities as filial daughters, and, through the ‘connecting’ and ‘disconnecting’ power of remittances, in the reimagining of the transnational family. Third, we discuss the strategies that women devise in negotiating between the conflicting demands and expectations of their natal and marital families and in securing their ‘place’ between two families. We base our findings on an analysis of interviews and ethnographic work with Vietnamese women and their Singaporean husbands through commercial matchmaking agencies.     

Migrant Women’s Transnationalism: Family Patterns and Policies

Whereas current policies on migration and integration are beginning to recognise family reunion as one of the most legitimate reasons for acceptance by a host society, they in most cases still do not account for the growing trend of feminisation of migration, and even rarely do they address specific migrants’ needs. As currently constituted, the integration bills envision a one‐way process that places migrants into a position where they cannot question, but only accept and fulfil the predetermined requirements of integration plans. But who are the women that migrate, what influence do their transnational experiences have on their families, and how do migration policies envision the reality of increasing transnationalism? This paper focuses on biographical interviews with migrant women in Slovenia as a valuable method to question current integration measurements, applied here to explore female migrants’ experiences in transnational family life and social networks. A gender sensitive approach is applied that critically evaluates the specificities of family reunification policies, which define women migrants as dependent family members. We discuss life trajectories of women migrants, focusing the debate on their own experiences in and with family life. This new empirical material is used to theorise gaps in contemporary migration research. Women migrants’ own reflections of transnational family ties show a great variety of experiences and their narratives are a unique window into motivational, political, as well as legal dimensions of migration.     

Patterning in Citations: An Analysis of References to George Herbert Mead

Abstract

Family work in dual-earner families has been studied extensively, but the focus has been primarily on household tasks and child care, neglecting the component of health care behavior. In this paper, I introduce scales to study the performance of family health care behaviors in dual-earner families. The items assess topics such as who arranged and accompanied family members to health care appointments, who left work early or took time off from work for health care, and who handled the paperwork of medical expenses. The sample consisted of 174 married women employed in health care and education. The study results indicate that the health care scales are reliable. They are also not highly correlated with demographic variables that might affect the utility of the scales to examine how health care behaviors are linked to other family work.     

‘More like a daughter than an employee’: the kinning process between migrant care workers,elderly care receivers and their extended families

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the intersections of formal and informal care in the relationships that develop between elderly care receivers and their families and migrant domestic care workers and their families. The domestic migrant care literature has tended to focus on two main ‘hidden costs’ of this ‘care-chain’: the ‘care exploitation’ of paid carers by their employers and the ‘care drain’ impact on the family members left behind by the migrant. In this paper, we employ a care circulation framework to examine the process of becoming kin-like – or ‘kinning’, which remains relatively under-explored and warrants further research. An analysis of this process of kinning helps to highlight how the domestic space of care receiver homes are transformed – through the negotiation of relationships with migrant care workers – into transnational social fields that bring the diaspora worlds of the migrants into the everyday worlds of the locals.     

Family Migration: The Role of Children and Education in Family Decision‐Making Strategies of Polish Migrants in London

Poland’s accession to the European Union in May 2004 brought many new possibilities and opportunities for Polish migrants to the United Kingdom. However, the focus on individual migrants has underestimated the complex roles of families in migration strategies and decision making. This paper brings together data from two studies of Polish migrants in London. In 2006–2007, we carried out a qualitative study, Recent Polish Migrants in London. That research examined how families may be reconfigured in different ways through migration, for example, transnational networks and splits within families. While the study participants represented varied examples of family reunification, they also revealed the complex decision making processes about leaving, staying, rejoining and returning. In our most recent study, Polish Children in London Primary Schools, we interviewed parents, who had migrated with children, about their experiences and expectations of London schools. This study revealed that the age of children was usually a factor in family migration decision making. There was a common expectation that younger children could easily adapt to a new school and learn English quickly. Drawing on the findings of these two studies, this paper will explore firstly, the variety of family migration strategies and secondly, the factors that inform migrants’ decisions to bring their families (especially children) or to leave them back home. Finally, the paper concludes by considering some of the policy implications of our findings.     

Geographic distance and intergenerational relationships in Chinese migrant families

ABSTRACT

This study examines the effect of adult Chinese migrants’ geographic distance from home on their intergenerational relationships with parents who remain behind. We compared monetary and family care support as well as emotional relationships among four parent-child groups: older adults and international migrant children, older adults and internal migrant children (who migrated to other cities in China), older adults and coresiding children, and older adults and local children (living in the same city as their parents). Data were derived from 332 older adults in Beijing, China, with at least one child who migrated to another country or city. Results from chi-square tests, anaylsis of variance (ANOVA) tests, and regression analyses indicate that international and internal migrant children maintain similar intergenerational relationships with their parents, and that both of those groups are less likely than coresiding and local children to have family care exchanges and emotionally close relationships with their parents. The results may help professionals develop supportive services and policies for older adults in migrant families.     

Gender,autonomy and return migration: negotiating street harassment in Lima,Peru

In this article, I approach street harassment broadly as a phenomenon to which women relate globally and as one that affects multiple aspects of their lives, or more specifically their experiences of return migration to Lima, Peru. I propose that street sexual harassment contributes to a restricted sense of autonomy among women return migrants in Lima. I emphasize that, given its pervasiveness, a consideration of street sexual harassment in relation to return migration contributes to a richer, gender‐conscious understanding of women's everyday experiences as return migrants. In examining a little studied yet significant form of everyday violence against women in the context of return migration, this article contributes to the growing literature on the intersections of gender, autonomy, and migration. More specifically, I draw on the experiences of middle‐ and upper‐class Peruvians to examine these intersections.     

Situating transnational families' care‐giving arrangements: the role of institutional contexts

Scholars sometimes conceptualize migrants and their kin as ‘transnational families' in acknowledgement that migration does not end with settlement and that migrants maintain regular contacts and exchange care across borders. Recent studies reveal that state policies and international regulations influence the maintenance of transnational family solidarity. We aim to contribute to our understanding of how families' care‐giving arrangements are situated within institutional contexts. We specify an analytical framework comprising a typology of care‐giving arrangements within transnational families, a typology of resources they require for care giving, and a specification of institutions through which those resources are in part derived. We illustrate the framework through a comparative analysis of two groups of migrants – Salvadorans in Belgium and Poles in the UK. We conclude by arguing that while institutions matter they are not the sole factor, and identify how future research might develop a more fully comprehensive situated transnationalism.     

Transnational aging careers: on transformation of kinship and citizenship in the context of migration among Bulgarian Muslims in Spain

This article focuses on “transnational aging careers,” a group of elderly migrants who are in constant movement between social contexts, families, and states. Drawing on a case of Bulgarian Muslim migrants in Spain, I look into the ruptures in the structure of care arrangements, kin expectations, and family relations, which migration triggers. I suggest that these transformations, albeit subtle, lead to reformulation of the fabric of the family. In this way, transnational care-motivated mobility affects future security based on kin reciprocity. At the same time, migration disrupts aging careers’ social citizenship both in Bulgaria and in Spain by limiting or even excluding them from state welfare support. I argue that these two lines of transformation, kinship and citizenship, result in new forms of gender and intergenerational inequalities. Furthermore, their intersection leads to a move from welfare to kinfare, which not only affects present arrangements between migrants, but also entails future insecurities.     

Women migrants in the global economy: a global overview (and regional perspectives)

ABSTRACT

Huge advances have been made in deepening and expanding our knowledge of gendered migration over the last decades in both theoretical and methodological terms. Empirically it is, however, still the case that North–South migration is at the basis of most theorisations, leaving the characteristics of South–South migration at the margins. In this paper we, therefore, shift the focus to intra- and trans-regional migration in a South–South context in exploring what this means for women migrants. While feminist scholars have highlighted care and the ways in which migration challenges social reproduction as an important issue, mainstream approaches continue to focus predominantly on the ‘productive’ lives of migrant workers. With migration theories still largely drawing on the experience of South–North migration, there continues to be relatively little understanding of South–South migration’s gender dynamics, despite the fact that many of the highly feminised, yet hyper-precarious, migration flows occur intra-regionally.     

Life on the Edge: Balancing Gendered and Occupational Identities among Unauthorized Mexican Migrant Roofers

Scholars have addressed the economic, gendered, and emotional dimensions of migration, especially as migrants move from origin to destination. However, scholarship on return migration and the subjective experiences of reintegrating to origin communities is poorly understood. In this paper, we examine the return migration of formerly unauthorized migrants who labored as roofers in the United States. We argue that the migration process redefines men’s masculinity as they attempt to balance family life in Mexico and their occupational lives in the U.S., all of which are essential for their identity but remain separated by an international border. We draw on 40 in-depth interviews with return migrant men in a small city in Guanajuato, Mexico to examine the emotional tensions men experience regarding the decision to remain in close proximity to family in Mexico and a desire to return again to their economically and emotionally fulfilling occupations in the U.S. We find that migrants’ nostalgia for prior U.S. labor market experience, in juxtaposition to reentry into the Mexican labor market, competes with current feelings of happiness and contentment obtained through family reintegration. These competing feelings, together with economic need, help explain the complex meaning of migration for return migrant men. We conclude by suggesting that once men have been exposed to U.S. life, the occupational identity becomes a “pull” that encourages future migration trips.     

Retirement migration and transnational grandparental support: a Spanish case study

People who migrate in retirement often do so to join younger generations who have already migrated, and to help with grandchildren. But what about those retirees who migrate away from their families? Do they still provide grandparental support? To address this question, we examine retirement migrants who reside permanently in their new country, Spain. We find that they are aware of grandparental support expectations, and that their migration decision sometimes creates conflict with their offspring. At the same time, these retirement migrants reshape the meaning of grandparental support. Care considerations influence their destination and housing choices, and they continue to provide care. They feel that their familial relationships are now of a higher quality, despite the distance. At the same time, gender still emerges as a key dimension of grandparental support. The grandparenting of these retirement migrants challenges facile depictions of their motivations and of the equation of quantity and quality of contacts.     

Managing the permanent temporariness of prolonged migration: The role of local and transnational care circulation among Argentine temporary migrants in Australia

In the past two decades, Australia has shifted from being a settler nation that promoted state-supported permanent migration to one where the scale and relative importance of temporary migration schemes have grown significantly. In 2017, Australia was the second largest issuing country of temporary visa permits after the United States, with temporary migrants applying, on average, for 3.3 temporary visas and spending 6.4 years in this multi-step visa journey to achieve permanent residency . As part of a broader research project on the social implications of temporary migration programs, we examine how Argentine temporary migrants exchange care to navigate temporary visa restrictions and the permanent temporariness in which they live. Our central argument is that transnational and local expressions, practices, and processes of care are co-constituted in particularistic temporary migrant care configurations that facilitate prolonged migration projects and continuity of care over time, despite the precarity that permanent temporariness brings. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork among Argentine temporary migrants, we illustrate the dynamics in which economic, accommodation, personal, practical, emotional and moral care is exchanged. The findings reveal the central role that transnational economic and practical as well as local, including local virtual, proximity care has in the everyday lives of Argentine temporary migrants. Ironically, their fragile temporariness may be an incentive to develop local support networks or maintain strong transnational ties to survive living in limbo.     

Homeward bound: the circular migration of entertainers between Japan and the Philippines

One feature of globalization is the growing number of temporary labour migrants, but their experience of settlement does not always fit the dominant perspective of transnational migration. Unlike transnational migrants, circular migrants tend not to be equally entrenched in home and host societies, but instead hold feelings of greater affinity for the home society. They engage in repeated short periods of work abroad, an example being migrant Filipina entertainers in Tokyo, Japan. This article describes the settlement of these circular migrants and demonstrates how it is a process of returning to the home society that entails limited integration in the host society; they are routinely segregated in time and space. Migrant Filipina entertainers start thinking about their departure almost as soon as they arrive, and their departure is marked by a carefully‐planned ceremony, or sayonara party. Questioning the assumption in the literature that circular migrants will eventually become permanent residents, in this article I call for the formulation of new theoretical frameworks that better capture the qualitatively distinct experiences of circular migrants.     

Consuming the transnational family: Indonesian migrant domestic workers to Saudi Arabia

Abstract There is heated debate in contemporary Indonesia about the rights and regulation of transnational women migrants, specifically about the ‘costs to families’ of women working overseas, but little attention has been given to women migrants' own views of family or women's own motivations for migration. In this article, which is based on field work in a migrant‐sending community in West Java, I focus on migrant women's narratives of transnational migration and employment as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. I contribute to the literature on gender and transnational migration by exploring migrants' consumption desires and practices as reflective not only of commoditized exchange but also of affect and sentiment. In addition, I show in detail how religion and class inflect low‐income women's narrations of morally appropriate mothering practices. In conclusion, I suggest that interpreting these debates from the ground up can contribute towards understanding the larger struggles animating the Indonesian state's contemporary relationships with women and Islam.